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Amplified Bible

Hosea 4:14

I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute Or your brides when they commit adultery, For the men themselves slip away with prostitutes, And they offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes [who give their bodies in honor of the idol]. So the people without understanding [stumble and fall and] come to ruin.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Blindness;   Idolatry;   Sodomites;   Women;   Thompson Chain Reference - Fall;   Harlots;   Insecurity of the Wicked;   Security-Insecurity;   Wicked, the;   Women;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Harlot;   Hosea;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Baal;   Men;   Prostitution;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Harlot;   Jeroboam;   Spouse;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Harlot;   Hosea;   Idol;   Phoenice;   Sodomites;   Water of Jealousy;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Adultery;   Fertility Cult;   High Place;   Hosea;   Immorality;   Prostitution;   Ugarit;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Harlot;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Baal;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Crime;   High Place;   Hosea;   Law in the Old Testament;   Salvation;   Sanctification;   Sodomite;   Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia - Ashtoreth;   Bastard;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Adultery;   Chastity;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I will not punish your daughterswhen they act promiscuouslyor your daughters-in-lawwhen they commit adultery,for the men themselves go off with prostitutesand make sacrifices with cult prostitutes.People without discernment are doomed.
Hebrew Names Version
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; And the people that does not understand will come to ruin.
King James Version
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.
English Standard Version
I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.
New American Standard Bible
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.
New Century Version
"But I will not punish your daughters for becoming prostitutes, nor your daughters-in-law for their sins of adultery. I will not punish them, because the men have sexual relations with prostitutes and offer sacrifices with the temple prostitutes. A foolish people will be ruined.
Geneva Bible (1587)
I will not visite your daughters when they are harlots: nor your spouses when they are whores: for they themselues are separated with harlots, and sacrifice with whores: therefore the people that doeth not vnderstand, shall fall.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot Or your brides when they commit adultery, For the men themselves go apart with harlots And offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes; So the people without understanding are ruined.
Legacy Standard Bible
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlotOr your brides when they commit adultery,For the men themselves go apart with harlotsAnd offer sacrifices with cult prostitutes;So the people without understanding are ruined.
Berean Standard Bible
I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves or your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go off with prostitutes and offer sacrifices with cult prostitutes. So a people without understanding will come to ruin.
Contemporary English Version
But I won't punish them. You men are to blame, because you go to prostitutes and offer sacrifices with them at pagan shrines. Your own foolishness will lead to your ruin.
Complete Jewish Bible
I won't punish your daughters when they act like whores, or your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; because the men are themselves going off with whores and sacrificing with prostitutes. Yes, a people without understanding will come to ruin."
Darby Translation
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your daughters-in-law for their committing adultery; for they themselves go aside with harlots, and they sacrifice with prostitutes: and the people that doth not understand shall come to ruin.
Easy-to-Read Version
"I cannot blame your daughters or your daughters-in-law for doing this, because your men go and have sex with the temple prostitutes and offer sacrifices with them. This is how foolish people destroy themselves.
George Lamsa Translation
I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom nor your brides when they commit adultery; for they themselves are mingled with whores, and they sacrifice with shameless harlots; therefore a people that does not understand embraces the harlot.
Good News Translation
Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, ‘A people without sense will be ruined.'
Lexham English Bible
I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, or your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; because they go aside with whores, and they sacrifice with temple prostitutes, a people that does not understand comes to ruin.
Literal Translation
I will not punish your daughters when they fornicate, nor your brides when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go aside with harlots, and they sacrifice with temple prostitutes. The people who do not understand are thrustdown.
American Standard Version
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with the prostitutes; and the people that doth not understand shall be overthrown.
Bible in Basic English
I will not give punishment to your daughters or your brides for their evil behaviour; for they make themselves separate with loose women, and make offerings with those who are used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods: the people who have no wisdom will be sent away.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; for they themselves consort with lewd women, and they sacrifice with harlots; and the people that is without understanding is distraught.
King James Version (1611)
I will not punish your daughters when they commit whordome, nor your spouses when they commit adulterie: for themselues are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therfore the people that doth not vnderstand, shall fall.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
I wyll not punishe your daughters for beyng defiled, and your spouses that became whoores: seeing the fathers them selues haue medled with harlots, and sacrificed with whoores: but the people that wyll not vnderstande, must be punished.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And I will not visit upon your daughters when they shall commit fornication, nor your daughters-in-law when they shall commit adultery: for they themselves mingled themselves with harlots, and sacrificed with polluted ones, and the people that understood not entangled itself with a harlot.
English Revised Version
I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for they themselves go apart with whores, and they sacrifice with the harlots: and the people that doth not understand shall be overthrown.
World English Bible
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; And the people that does not understand will come to ruin.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Y schal not visite on youre douytris, whanne thei don fornicacioun, and on youre wyues, whanne thei doon auowtrie; for thei lyuyden with hooris, and maden sacrifice with men turned in to wymmens condiciouns. And the puple that vndirstondith not, schal be betun.
Update Bible Version
I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for [the men] themselves go apart with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with prostitutes; and the people that does not understand shall be overthrown.
Webster's Bible Translation
I will not punish your daughters when they are guilty of lewdness, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for they themselves are separated with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people [that] doth not understand shall fall.
New English Translation
I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men consort with harlots, they sacrifice with temple prostitutes. It is true: "A people that lacks understanding will come to ruin!"
New King James Version
"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. Deuteronomy 23:18 ">[fn] Therefore people who do not understand will be trampled.
New Living Translation
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.
New Life Bible
I will not punish your daughters when they are like women who sell the use of their bodies, or your brides when they do sex sins. For the men themselves go with the sinful women to give gifts in worship to false gods. And people without understanding will be destroyed.
New Revised Standard
I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with whores, and sacrifice with temple prostitutes; thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
I do not bring punishment upon your daughters when they become unchaste, nor upon your brides, when they commit adultery, for, the men themselves, with unchaste women, do seclude themselves, and, with the common women of the shrine, do offer sacrifice, - and, a people who will not discern, must be ruined.
Douay-Rheims Bible
I will not visit upon your daughters, when they shall commit fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall commit adultery: because themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the effeminate, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten.
Revised Standard Version
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with harlots, and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.
Young's Literal Translation
Therefore commit whoredom do your daughters, And your spouses commit adultery, I do not see after your daughters when they commit whoredom, And after your spouses when they commit adultery, For they with the harlots are separated, And with the whores they do sacrifice, A people that doth not understand kicketh.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
I wil not punish yor doughters for beinge defyled, & yor brydes that became whores: seinge the fathers themselues haue medled with harlottes, and offered with vnthriftes: but the people that wil not vnderstonde, must be punyshed.

Contextual Overview

12My people consult their [lifeless] wooden idol, and their [diviner's] wand gives them oracles. For a spirit of prostitution has led them astray [morally and spiritually], And they have played the prostitute, withdrawing themselves from their God. 13They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains And burn incense on the hills, Under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, Because the shade is pleasant there. Therefore your daughters play the prostitute And your brides commit adultery. 14I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute Or your brides when they commit adultery, For the men themselves slip away with prostitutes, And they offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes [who give their bodies in honor of the idol]. So the people without understanding [stumble and fall and] come to ruin.15Though you, Israel, play the prostitute [by worshiping idols], Do not let Judah become guilty [of the same thing]; And do not go to Gilgal [where idols are worshiped], Or go up to Beth-aven (House of Wickedness), Nor swear [oaths in idolatrous worship, saying], "As the LORD lives!" 16For Israel is stubborn, Like a stubborn heifer. Can the LORD now pasture them Like a lamb in a large field? 17Ephraim is joined to idols, So let him alone [to suffer the consequences]. 18When their liquor is gone [and their drinking parties are over], They habitually go to play the prostitute; Ephraim's rulers continue to dearly love shame [more than her glory which is the LORD, Israel's God]. 19The wind [of God's relentless wrath] has wrapped up Israel in its wings, And [in captivity] they will be ashamed because of their sacrifices [to calves, to sun, to moon, to stars, and to pagan gods].

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

I will not: or, Shall I not, etc

punish: Hosea 4:17, Isaiah 1:5, Hebrews 12:8

for: 1 Corinthians 6:16

and they: 1 Kings 14:23, 1 Kings 14:24, 1 Kings 15:12, 2 Kings 23:7

therefore: Hosea 4:1, Hosea 4:5, Hosea 4:6, Hosea 14:9, Proverbs 28:5, Isaiah 44:18-20, Isaiah 56:11, Daniel 12:10, John 8:43, Romans 3:11, Ephesians 4:18

fall: or, be punished

Reciprocal: 2 Samuel 12:11 - I will take Job 31:10 - and let Proverbs 2:19 - None Proverbs 5:9 - General Jeremiah 5:7 - they then Jeremiah 17:2 - their children Ezekiel 14:7 - separateth Ezekiel 22:9 - they commit Hosea 4:10 - they shall commit Hosea 9:10 - separated Amos 7:17 - Thy wife Luke 6:49 - immediately

Cross-References

Genesis 4:5
but for Cain and his offering He had no respect. So Cain became extremely angry (indignant), and he looked annoyed and hostile.
Genesis 4:6
And the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you so angry? And why do you look annoyed?
Genesis 4:11
"And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's [shed] blood from your hand.
Genesis 4:12
"When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength [it will resist producing good crops] for you; you shall be a fugitive and a vagabond [roaming aimlessly] on the earth [in perpetual exile without a home, a degraded outcast]."
Genesis 4:13
Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Genesis 4:14
"Behold, You have driven me out this day from the face of the land; and from Your face (presence) I will be hidden, and I will be a fugitive and an [aimless] vagabond on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."
Genesis 4:15
And the LORD said to him, "Therefore, whoever kills Cain, a sevenfold vengeance [that is, punishment seven times worse] shall be taken on him [by Me]." And the LORD set a [protective] mark (sign) on Cain, so that no one who found (met) him would kill him.
Genesis 4:16
So Cain went away from the [manifested] presence of the LORD, and lived in the land of Nod [wandering in exile], east of Eden.
Genesis 4:20
Adah gave birth to Jabal; he became the father of those [nomadic herdsmen] who live in tents and have cattle and raise livestock.
Genesis 4:24
"If Cain is avenged sevenfold [as the LORD said he would be], Then Lamech [will be avenged] seventy-sevenfold."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredoms, nor your spouses when they commit adultery,.... Either not punish them at all, so that they shall go on in sin, and to a greater degree, to the disgrace and reproach of their parents and husbands; or not as yet, or not so severely in them, because it was by their example they were led into it. Jarchi's note is very impertinent, that God threatens them with the disuse of the bitter waters of jealousy. The words are by some rendered interrogatively, "shall I not punish your daughters?" c. r verily I will; and not them only, but their parents and husbands too, who deserve more severe corrections:

for themselves are separated with whores, and sacrifice with harlots; they separated themselves to Baalpeor, that shameful idol, Hosea 9:10, the Priapus of the Gentiles, in whose idolatrous worship many obscene rites were used; these men separated themselves from their wives, as well as from God and his worship, and from the company and conversation of men, and in private committed uncleanness with the women that attended, and with the female priests that officiated at the worship of idols; those "sanctified" ones, as the word may be rendered; and after that ate of things offered to idols with them. So the Targum,

"they associated themselves with whores, and ate and drank with harlots.''

Some versions understand the latter of catamites, or sodomitical persons, and of the wickedness practised by them in such places.

Therefore the people that doth not understand; the law, as the Targum; what is to be done, and what to be avoided; the difference between the true and false religion; have no knowledge of divine and spiritual things, at least are very wavering and unsettled in their minds about religion, having thought little, and know less, of the matter:

shall fall: into idolatry and adultery, led by such examples. So the Septuagint version, "is implicated with a whore"; or "embraces a whore", as the Syriac and Arabic versions; see Proverbs 7:22 or shall fall into calamities, ruin, and destruction; shall be dashed, as the Targum; so the Arabic interpreter of Mark 9:26, uses the word: though Aben Ezra and Kimchi say, that in the Arabic language it signifies to be perplexed and disturbed, so as not to know what to do s. The first sense seems to be best, of being scandalized, offended, and stumbling and falling into sin; and which Abarbinel suggests, and it agrees with what follows concerning Judah.

r So Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt. s Vid. R. Sol. Urbin, Ohel Moed, fol. 43. 2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I will not punish your daughters - God threatens, as the severest woe, that He will not punish their sins with the correction of a Father in this present life, but will leave the sinners, unheeded, to follow all iniquity. It is the last punishment of persevering stoners, that God leaves them to prosper in their sins and in those things which help them to sin. Hence, we are taught to pray, “O Lord, correct me, but in judgment, not in Thine anger” Jeremiah 10:24. For since God chastiseth those whom He loveth, it follows, “if we be without chasetisement, whereof all are partakers, then are we bastards, and not sons” Hebrews 12:8. To be chastened severely for lesser sins, is a token of great love of God toward us; to sin on without punishment is a token of God’s extremest displeasure, and a sign of reprobation. : “Great is the offence, if, when thou hast sinned, thou art undeserving of the wrath of God.”

For themselves are separated with whores - God turns from them as unworthy to be spoken to anymore, and speaks of them, They “separate themselves,” from whom? and with whom? They separate themselves “from” God, and with the degraded ones and “with” devils. Yet so do all those who choose willful sin.

And they sacrifice - (continually, as before) with (the) harlots The unhappy women here spoken of were such as were “consecrated” (as their name imports) to their vile gods and goddesses, and to prostitution. This dreadful consecration, yea desecration, whereby they were taught to seek honor in their disgrace, was spread in different forms over Phoenicia, Syria, Phrygia, Assyria, Babylonia. Ashtaroth, (the Greek Astarte) was its chief object. This horrible worship prevailed in Midian, when Israel was entering the promised land, and it suggested the devilish device of Balaam Numbers 25:0; Numbers 31:8, Numbers 31:16 to entangle Israel in sin whereby they might forfeit the favor of God. The like is said to subsist to this day in pagan India. The sin was both the cause and effect of the superstition. Man’s corrupt heart gave rise to the worship: and the worship in turn fostered the corruption. He first sanctioned the sin by aid of a degrading worship of nature, and then committed it under plea of that worship. He made his sin a law to him. Women, who never relapsed into the sin, sinned in obedience to the dreadful law . Blinded as they were, individual pagan had the excuse of their hereditary blindness; the Jews had imperfect grace. The sins of Christians are self sought, against light and grace.

Therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall - The word comprises both, “that doth not understand,” and, “that will not understand.” They might have understood, if they would. God had revealed Himself to them, and had given to them His law, and was still sending to them His prophets, so that they could not have known and understood God’s will, had they willed. Ignorance, which we might avoid or cure, if we would, is itself a sin. It cannot excuse sin. They shall, he says, fall, “or be cast headlong.” Those who blind their eyes, so as not to see or understand God’s will, bring themselves to sudden ruin, which hide from themselves, until they fall headlong in it.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Hosea 4:14. I will not punish — Why should you be stricken any more; ye will revolt more and more. When God, in judgment, removes his judgments, the case of that people is desperate. While there is hope, there is correction.

Themselves are separated — There is a reference here to certain debaucheries which should not be described. The state of the people at this time must have been abominable beyond all precedent; animal, sensual, bestial, diabolical: women consecrating themselves to serve their idols by public prostitution; boys dismembered like the Galli or priests of Cybele, men and women acting unnaturally; and all conjoining to act diabolically.


 
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