Hosea

14* Come back, Israel, to your God, because you came to grief by your guilt. 2* Take words with you and say to him “You win; pardon guilt and take goodwill, and we will pay fruit from our lips. 3* Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride ponies, nor will we again say ‘Our God’ to work of our hands, when it is in you an orphan finds mercy.” 4 I will cure their apostasy, I will love them eagerly, because my anger is turned back from them. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall bud like the lily and strike his roots like the Lebanon; 6** his sprouts shall spread, and his sightliness shall be like the olive-tree’s, with a scent like the Lebanon’s. 7***** They shall come back to sitting in his shadow; they shall be watered like a garden, to be like a grapevine whose record is like Lebanon wine. 8** What does Ephraim want of idols anymore? I answered him, I eye him like a green cypress, from me your fruit is found.

9 Who is wise? let him understand these things; intelligent? let him know them; for Jehovah’s paths are straight, and honest men will walk in them, but rogues will stumble in them.