Daily Devotional--1/10/2011

Hosea 4:1-11

¹ Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
² There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
³ Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away.

⁴ “But let no one bring a charge,
let no one accuse another,
for your people are like those
who bring charges against a priest.
⁵ You stumble day and night,
and the prophets stumble with you.
So I will destroy your mother—
⁶ my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

“Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law of your God,
I also will ignore your children.
⁷ The more priests there were,
the more they sinned against me;
they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.
⁸ They feed on the sins of my people
and relish their wickedness.
⁹ And it will be: Like people, like priests.
I will punish both of them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.

¹⁰ “They will eat but not have enough;
they will engage in prostitution but not flourish,
because they have deserted the LORD
to give themselves ¹¹ to prostitution;
old wine and new wine
take away their understanding.

In these verses God brings formal accusations against His people on account of their unfaithfulness and sin.

• For what sins does God bring these accusations against His people [v.1-2]?
• What consequences does God pronounce for Israel’s unfaithfulness [v.3,6,7,9,10]?
• Where might you be guilty of living as if you had no knowledge of God?
• How has this affected your priestly representation of God before the world?