13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
- Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”
- Revelation 3:17 “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:”
14 Therefore the grave (1) hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
15 And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled:
- Isaiah 2:11 “11 The lofty looks (pride) of man shall be humbled (humiliated), and the haughtiness (elevation, status) of men shall be bowed down (made low), and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.”
16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.
17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the desolate places of the rich ones shall other nations consume.
18 Woe unto them that develop depravity with the company of idolatry, and sin as it were a never ending entanglement.
19 That declare, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
- (Let YHVH’s words expose their mixing of false religion with the true faith.)
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
- (This is the confusing and mixing of religions with the true faith in YHVH. Terms like “Gay Pastors” and the freedom to sin inside the faith.)
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for a donation, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
- In the Roman Catholic Church, according to the Oxford Dictionary, an indulgence is a grant by the Pope of remission of the temporal punishment in purgatory still due for sins after absolution. The unrestricted sale of indulgences by pardoner’s was a widespread abuse during the later Middle Ages. These were direct exchanges of money for forgiveness of a transgression from a mortal man, an usurping of the authority of YHVH. Likewise we see the rampant alcoholism by the clergy, so much so , it is displayed as comedic relief in movies and television.
24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have spurned the Torah of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their idols were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
- Despite our actions YHVH is waiting patiently for or repentance.
- Deuteronomy 9:29 “Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.”
- Psalm 136:12 “With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for his mercy endureth forever.”
26 And he will lift up an signal to the nations from long ago, and will call out unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:
27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor die; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
- 1 Thessalonians 4:15 “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.”
28 Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:
29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and seize the prey, and shall escape and none shall snatch them away.
- John 18:9 “That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake, Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none.”
30 And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one regards unto the worldly perspective behold misery, destruction, death and sorrow, and YHVH’s truth is obscured in the environment thereof.
We see the same world today as Isaiah saw, a world steeped in thousands of years of mixed religious practices that is so complicated that the average person cannot or will not see the truth. The average person won’t take the time to dissect the traditions of men to weigh them against the truth of God’s word. Should they do that very thing they would soon discover the man-made actions, doctrines and habits that destroy the very desire God has for His people.
- Matthew 15:6 “You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition.”
- (1. H7585 שְׁאוֹל sh’owl (sheh-ole’) n-f. the world of the dead {as if a subterranean retreat}, including its accessories and inmates.)
Berean Breadcrumbs 
Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom called Israel and Ephraim in Scripture. They were given a certificate of divorce (Jeremiah 3:8) and dispersed into the polytheistic nations in 722 BCE because of their unrepentant idolatry to the gods of those nations while rejecting the Laws of YHVH (see Hosea). They were full of the pagan desire for knowledge and not God’s wisdom found in his rules. They are the lost sheep Jesus spoke of in John 10:16 and those to whom the apostles went to share the good news (gospel) of the kingdom of God and their ability to rejoin His people according to the law of the divorced wife (Deut. 24:1-4). Through Jesus’ (the husband) death, they could be rejoined to YHVH’s people, their sins forgiven! So, do the math. Those Ephraimites were the first people the apostles sought out, they, and all who joined them, became ‘Christians’, most became part of the NEW religion named by the ‘early church fathers’ (who were not the apostles) as ‘Catholicism’ by the beginning of the second century CE, their descendants were part of the Christian Reformation, and the escape for religious freedom to the Americas. These Ephraimites ARE the ‘church’; therefore, they ARE the stick of Ephraim who will be rejoined with the remnant of Judah as YHVH’s people, Israel (Ezekiel 37). At least a remnant who will wake up and see the truth in Scripture and history.
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