The time of Israel’s punishment has come; the day of payment is here. Soon Israel will know this all too well. Because of your great sin and hostility, you say, “The prophets are crazy and the inspired men are fools!”
Parallel translations
- WEB The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great.
- KJV The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.
- BSB The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have arrived—let Israel know it. The prophet is called a fool, and the inspired man insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and hostility.
- NKJV The days of punishment have come; The days of recompense have come. Israel knows! The prophet is a fool, The spiritual man is insane, Because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity.
- NASB ¶The days of punishment have come, The days of retribution have come; Let Israel know this! The prophet is a fool, The inspired person is insane, Because of the grossness of your wrongdoing, And because your hostility is so great.
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
The days of reckoning have come, yet Israel scorns the prophet as a fool because of their great sin and hostility.
Overview
As judgment arrives, the people mock God's true messenger, calling the inspired prophet mad. Their contempt for God's word reveals the very sin and hostility that bring the reckoning upon them. The rejection of God's prophet anticipates the rejection of Christ, the greatest Prophet, whom His own people despised, and warns against scorning the word that alone can save.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 34
- Acts 26:24–25As he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning is driving you insane!”
- Mic 7:4The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.
- 2 Kgs 9:11When Jehu came out to the servants of his lord, and one said to him, “Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you?” He said to them, “You know the man and how he talks.”
- Mark 3:21When his friends heard it, they went out to seize him: for they said, “He is insane.”
- Ezek 14:9–10“‘“If the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, Yahweh, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand on him, and will destroy him from among my people Israel.
- Jer 10:15They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.
- 2 Cor 5:13For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sober mind, it is for you.
- Ezek 13:3Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
- Lam 2:14Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.
- Isa 10:3What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
- Luke 21:22For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
- Mic 2:11If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood lies: “I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink”; he would be the prophet of this people.
- Ezek 13:10“‘Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, “Peace;” and there is no peace. When one builds up a wall, behold, they plaster it with whitewash.
- Jer 29:26“Yahweh has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the priest, that there may be officers in Yahweh’s house, for every man who is mad, and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles.
- 2 Th 2:10–12and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
- Zeph 1:14–18The great day of Yahweh is near. It is near, and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Yahweh. The mighty man cries there bitterly.
- Jer 46:21Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They didn’t stand, for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation.
- Ezek 25:17I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes; and they shall know that I am Yahweh, when I shall lay my vengeance on them.
- Ezek 7:2–7“You, son of man, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.
- Ezek 38:23I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will make myself known in the eyes of many nations; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.
- Zeph 3:4Her prophets are arrogant and treacherous people. Her priests have profaned the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law.
- Hos 9:8A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.
- Rev 16:19The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
- Isa 34:8For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
- Jer 16:18First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”
- Jer 11:23and there shall be no remnant to them: for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.’”
- Jer 6:14They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace.
- Amos 8:2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.
- Jer 23:16–17Yahweh of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh.
- Zech 11:15–17Yahweh said to me, “Take for yourself yet again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
- Isa 26:11Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see; but they will see your zeal for the people, and be disappointed. Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.
- Jer 8:11They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.
- Ezek 12:22–28“Son of man, what is this proverb that you have in the land of Israel, saying, ‘The days are prolonged, and every vision fails?’
- Isa 44:25who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 9:7 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.