So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.
Parallel translations
- WEB So Bethel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the king of Israel will be destroyed.
- BSB Thus it will be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. When the day dawns, the king of Israel will be utterly cut off.
- NKJV Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, Because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel Shall be cut off utterly.
- NASB So it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
- NLT You will share that fate, Bethel, because of your great wickedness. When the day of judgment dawns, the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Because of Israel's great wickedness, especially its corrupt worship at Bethel, its king will be cut off at daybreak. It shows that idolatry brings swift and certain downfall.
Overview
Bethel, once a place of patriarchal encounter with God, had become a center of calf-worship and is here singled out as the source of judgment. The sudden destruction of the king "at daybreak" emphasizes how quickly and decisively God's judgment can fall. Israel's chosen leadership cannot save them when they have abandoned the Lord.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Hos 10:5The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.
- Rom 7:13Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
- Amos 7:9–17And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.
- Hos 10:7As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.
- Hos 10:3For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the LORD; what then should a king do to us?
- Isa 16:14But now the LORD hath spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of an hireling, and the glory of Moab shall be contemned, with all that great multitude; and the remnant shall be very small and feeble.
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Christ at the center
God's relentless love for an unfaithful bride dramatizes the gospel: 'Out of Egypt I called my son' is fulfilled in Jesus, who redeems an adulterous people at his own cost.
How Hosea 10:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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