Hosea
Introduction

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14

Women
Injustice
Cruelty and Violence
Family Values
Contradictions
Language
Absurdities
Sex
Intolerance
Prophecy
Interpretation
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Cruelties in Hosea

  1. God (or Hosea?) tells his children that their mother is a whore who is not his wife. He asks them to tell their mother to "put away her whoredoms" and "her adulteries from between her breasts" or he'll "strip her naked ... and slay her with thirst." 2:2-3

  2. God will tear up Ephraim like a lion so that "in their affliction they will seek me." 5:14

  3. "Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them!" 7:13

  4. For ignoring God "their princes shall fall by the sword." 7:16

  5. "I will send a fire upon his cities." 8:14

  6. God will induce miscarriages and kill the children of Ephraim. 9:11-12

  7. "O Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts." 9:14

  8. "I will slay even the beloved fruit of their womb." 9:16

  9. God will punish Israel by "dashing" together mothers and their children. 10:14

  10. The blame for Ephraim's bloody destruction falls on Ephraim, not on God. Even though God is the one who brings it about. 12:14

  11. God will rip humans apart and then eat them like a lion.13:7-8

  12. Because the Samaritans chose to worship another deity, God will dash their infants to pieces and their "women with child shall be ripped up." 13:16