Hosea 10:1

¹¹Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they became for him altars for sinning.

¹Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. ²He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. ³“Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. ⁴What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? ⁵Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down. ⁶I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.” ⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

²¹For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.

¹“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up a carved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.

¹¹If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.

²³For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

²⁸“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble, for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.

⁷For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. ⁸For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

¹“I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. ²Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. ⁵I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

¹The LORD’s word came to me, saying, ²“Son of man, what is the vine tree more than any tree, the vine branch which is among the trees of the forest? ³Will wood be taken of it to make anything? Will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel on it? ⁴Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire has devoured both its ends, and the middle of it is burned. Is it profitable for any work? ⁵Behold, when it was whole, it was suitable for no work. How much less, when the fire has devoured it, and it has been burned, will it yet be suitable for any work?”