Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with footprints of blood.
Parallel translations
- WEB Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.
- KJV Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood.
- NKJV Gilead is a city of evildoers And defiled with blood.
- NASB Gilead is a city of wrongdoers, Tracked with bloody footprints.
- NLT “Gilead is a city of sinners, tracked with footprints of blood.
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
Gilead is named as a city of evildoers, stained with the tracks of bloodshed.
Overview
Hosea singles out Gilead as a center of violence and crime, its very streets marked by blood. This concrete indictment shows that the nation's idolatry produced real moral corruption and murder. Such evidence of guilt underscores why God's judgment is just, and why humanity needs the cleansing that no city or sacrifice could provide apart from Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Hos 12:11Is there iniquity in Gilead? They will surely come to nothing. Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Indeed, their altars will be heaps of stones in the furrows of the field.
- Matt 26:15–16and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand Him over to you?” And they set out for him thirty pieces of silver.
- Acts 25:3to grant them a concession against Paul by summoning him to Jerusalem, because they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way.
- Hos 5:1“Hear this, O priests! Take heed, O house of Israel! Give ear, O royal house! For this judgment is against you because you have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor.
- Ps 10:8He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless.
- 1 Kgs 2:5Moreover, you know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me—what he did to Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether, the two commanders of the armies of Israel. He killed them in peacetime to avenge the blood of war. He stained with the blood of war the belt around his waist and the sandals on his feet.
- 2 Sam 3:27When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.
- Hos 4:2Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.
- Ps 59:2Deliver me from workers of iniquity, and save me from men of bloodshed.
- Acts 23:12–15When daylight came, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul.
- Josh 21:38And from the tribe of Gad they were given Ramoth in Gilead, a city of refuge for the manslayer, Mahanaim,
- Jer 11:19For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.”
- Isa 59:6Their cobwebs cannot be made into clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their deeds are sinful deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.
- Mic 7:2The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.
- 2 Sam 20:8And while they were at the great stone in Gibeon, Amasa joined them. Now Joab was dressed in military attire, with a dagger strapped to his belt. And as he stepped forward, he slipped the dagger from its sheath.
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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 6:8 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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