Hosea 6

World English Bible 86 include this book

1 “Come! Let’s return to the LORD; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.

2 After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him.

3 Let’s acknowledge the LORD. Let’s press on to know the LORD. As surely as the sun rises, the LORD will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth.”

4 “Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early.

5 Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning.

6 For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

7 But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me there.

8 Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.

9 As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.

10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephraim. Israel is defiled.

11 “Also, Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of my people.

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1 place 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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