I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute, Or your brides when they commit adultery, Because the men themselves slip away with the prostitutes And offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes; So the people without understanding are ruined.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute, nor your brides when they commit adultery; because the men consort with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with the shrine prostitutes; so the people without understanding will come to ruin.
- KJV I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.
- BSB I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go off with prostitutes and offer sacrifices with shrine prostitutes. So a people without understanding will come to ruin.
- NKJV “I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, Nor your brides when they commit adultery; For the men themselves go apart with harlots, And offer sacrifices with a ritual harlot. Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled.
- NLT But why should I punish them for their prostitution and adultery? For your men are doing the same thing, sinning with whores and shrine prostitutes. O foolish people! You refuse to understand, so you will be 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
God says He will not single out the women for punishment, since the men themselves consort with cult prostitutes; a people without understanding falls into ruin. Shared guilt brings shared destruction.
Overview
The men who frequented the shrine prostitutes were as guilty as the daughters and brides, so judgment falls on all. God's point is not to excuse the women but to expose the hypocrisy of men who led the way into idolatrous immorality. The closing line, 'the people without understanding will come to ruin,' restates the chapter's theme that a nation lacking the knowledge of God destroys itself.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- 1 Cor 6:16Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.”
- Hos 4:1Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.
- Eph 4:18being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts;
- Prov 28:5Evil men don’t understand justice; but those who seek Yahweh understand it fully.
- Isa 56:11Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.
- Hos 14:9Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the righteous walk in them; But the rebellious stumble in them.
- 2 Kgs 23:7He broke down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in Yahweh’s house, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.
- John 8:43Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word.
- Dan 12:10Many shall purify themselves, and make themselves white, and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand; but those who are wise shall understand.
- Hos 4:17Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone!
- 1 Kgs 14:23–24For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
- Rom 3:11There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.
- Isa 44:18–20They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand.
- Heb 12:8But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.
- 1 Kgs 15:12He put away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
- Deut 23:17There shall be no prostitute of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
- Isa 1:5Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
- Hos 4:5–6You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.
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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 4:14 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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