Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
Parallel translations
- WEB Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding.
- BSB Promiscuity, wine, and new wine take away understanding.
- NKJV “Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart.
- NASB ¶Infidelity, wine, and new wine take away the understanding.
- NLT to worship other gods. “Wine has robbed my people of their understanding.
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
Prostitution and drunkenness rob the people of understanding. Indulgence in sin clouds the mind and corrupts judgment.
Overview
Sexual immorality, often bound up with idolatrous worship, together with wine and strong drink, strips away the capacity for sound thinking. The verse diagnoses how sin enslaves not only the body but also the mind, dulling discernment. It warns that habitual indulgence leaves a person spiritually and morally senseless, unable to grasp the truth of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Prov 20:1Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
- Luke 21:34And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
- Isa 28:7But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
- Prov 23:27–35For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
- Prov 6:32But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
- Eccl 7:7Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
- Isa 5:12And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.
- Hos 4:12My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.
- Rom 13:11–14And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 4:11 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.