Hosea 7:3-16

says, “They deceive the king with their wickedness and the rulers with their lies. They are all unfaithful to the king. Their anger is like an overheated oven. Their oven burns so hot that the baker could knead his bread at night until it rises in the morning and he still wouldn’t need to stoke the fire. On the king’s day of celebration , his officials are drunk with wine, and the king trusted the traitors. Their hearts are like an oven that burns with treachery. All night long, their anger smolders; then in the morning, it bursts into flame. Yes, they are all as hot as an oven, ready to consume their rulers. All their kings have fallen in this way, yet not one of them has ever called on me.” YAHWEH YAHWEH says, “Ephraim mixes with the nations. My people are like half-done flatbread, burnt on one side and raw dough on the other. Ephraim does not realize alliances with foreigners devoured his strength; even his hair has turned gray, but he has no clue. Israel’s arrogance has become his own accuser. Yet in spite of all these troubles, they do not seek me, YAHWEH their God, nor come back to me. “Ephraim is like a dove, silly and senseless, first calling on Egypt for help then turning to Assyria. Wherever they turn, I will spread out my net and catch them. I will bring them down like the birds from the air. I will punish them for the evil they have done.” “They are doomed for having fled from me. Destruction will seize them for having rebelled against me. I longed to pay their ransom time and time again, but they have believed and spoken lies about me. Their cries to me are not with a sincere heart, and they wail like heathens on their beds. When they ritually mutilate themselves to cause their grain and grapes to grow, they know they are rebelling against me. Though I held them up, giving strength to their arms, they plotted evil against me. They turned in the wrong direction to a god who is no god at all. They are like a warped bow that can’t shoot straight. Their leaders will be killed in war because of all their arrogant, defiant words. Oh, how the Egyptians will mock them!”