Hosea 12

World English Bible 86 include this book

1 Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt.

2 The LORD also has a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his deeds he will repay him.

3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he contended with God.

4 Indeed, he struggled with the angel, and prevailed; he wept, and made supplication to him. He found him at Bethel, and there he spoke with us—

5 even the LORD, the God of Armies. The LORD is his name of renown!

6 Therefore turn to your God. Keep kindness and justice, and wait continually for your God.

7 A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

8 Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich. I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.”

9 “But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt. I will yet again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast.

10 I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables.

11 If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.

12 Jacob fled into the country of Aram. Israel served to get a wife. For a wife he tended flocks and herds.

13 By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved.

14 Ephraim has bitterly provoked anger. Therefore his blood will be left on him, and his Lord will repay his contempt.

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2 places named in this chapter.

Where this was written

Samaria attested Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom.

When this was written

The traditions broadly agree on this one.

Broad agreement: 755 BC–715 BC Hosea
Dated by the kings named in the opening verse.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (755 BC–715 BC).

1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
753 BC Traditional founding of Rome Rome
The legendary date of Rome's founding, later used as the anchor of the Roman calendar.
750 BC–650 BC Homeric epics take written form Greece
The Iliad and Odyssey were fixed in writing after generations of oral transmission.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
722 BC Fall of Samaria Levant
The Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel and the deportation of much of its population.

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