Hosea, 6

1. Come, let us return to Yahweh. He has rent us and he will heal us; he has struck 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 shall live in his presence.

3. Let us know, let us strive to know Yahweh; that he will come is as certain as the dawn. He will come to us like a shower, like the rain of springtime to the earth.

4. What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What am I to do with you, Judah? For your love is like morning mist, like the dew that quickly disappears.

5. This is why I have hacked them to pieces by means of the prophets, why I have killed them with words from my mouth, why my sentence will blaze forth like the dawn-

6. for faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings.

7. But they have broken the covenant at Adam, there they have betrayed me.

8. Gilead is a city of evil-doers, full of bloody footprints.

9. Like so many robbers in ambush, a gang of priests commits murder on the road to Shechem- what infamous behaviour!

10. At Bethel I have seen a horrible thing; there Ephraim plays the whore, Israel is befouled.

11. For you too, Judah, a harvest is in store, when I restore my people's fortunes.