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You will stumble in the day,
    and the prophet will stumble with you at night;
    I will make an end of your mother.[a]
My people are ruined for lack of knowledge!
    Since you have rejected knowledge,
    I will reject you from serving as my priest;
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
    I will also forget your children.

The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against me,
    I will change their glory[b] into shame.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 4:5 Your mother: the one who gave life to the priest, understood here as an extension of the punishment to his whole family (Am 7:17), or “mother” taken as a metaphor for the community of Israel, of which the priest is a member (Hos 2:4).
  2. 4:7 Their glory: possibly connoting “their children.” See 9:11: Is 22:24. Or “Glory” may refer to the Lord in contrast to Ba’al. The Hebrew word for shame, bosheth, is often substituted for Ba’al in biblical names. See Ishbaal (Heb. Ishbosheth, 2 Sm 2:8, 10, 12, 15) and Meribaal (Heb. Mephibosheth, 2 Sm 9:6, 10–13).

You stumble(A) day and night,
    and the prophets stumble with you.
So I will destroy your mother(B)
    my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.(C)

“Because you have rejected knowledge,
    I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law(D) of your God,
    I also will ignore your children.
The more priests there were,
    the more they sinned against me;
    they exchanged their glorious God[a](E) for something disgraceful.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. Hosea 4:7 Syriac (see also an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition); Masoretic Text me; / I will exchange their glory