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Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood.
Hosea 6:8 · King James Version
Parallel translations
  • WEB Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.
  • BSB Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with footprints of 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? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.
  • Matt 26:15–16And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
  • Acts 25:3And desired favour against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, laying wait in the way to kill him.
  • Hos 5:1Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.
  • Ps 10:8He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.
  • 1 Kgs 2:5Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet.
  • 2 Sam 3:27And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth rib, that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.
  • Hos 4:2By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
  • Ps 59:2Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men.
  • Acts 23:12–15And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.
  • Josh 21:38And out of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with her suburbs, to be a city of refuge for the slayer; and Mahanaim with her suburbs,
  • Jer 11:19But I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter; and I knew not that they had devised devices against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.
  • Isa 59:6Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
  • Mic 7:2The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
  • 2 Sam 20:8When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa went before them. And Joab’s garment that he had put on was girded unto him, and upon it a girdle with a sword fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof; and as he went forth it fell out.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (1)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Hosea videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Hosea 6:8YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on HoseaMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

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

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.