Today, I am reading and commenting on  Hosea 8-14.

I struggle with reading Hosea.  The combination of the poetic form he uses and the metaphors he uses for his message challenge my ability to follow what he is saying.  Yet, for all of that, he uses some phrases which really strike me.  He writes about those who sow the wind and thus reap the whirlwind.  I think we often fail to truly comprehend that message because we do not think like a farmer.  When you sow seeds, say grains of wheat, or of corn, each seed you plant yields ten or a hundred times as much when the plant matures.  In the same way, when you sow sin, trouble, and wickedness, every little bit that you sow yields ten or a hundred times as much trouble and turmoil.  Instead of sowing the wind, Hosea tells us to sow righteousness, so that we might reap unfailing love.  If we break up our hardened hearts and seek the Lord, He will come and shower His righteousness onto us.  Hosea tells us that now is the time to seek the Lord, but instead of doing so, we have planted wickedness.  As a result we are reaping evil and eating the fruit of deception.

If we depend on our own strength, the roar of battle with rise against us and our strongholds will be devastated.  However, if instead we return to God, wait for Him, and maintain love and justice, He will deliver us from the power of death.  Jesus has redeemed us from death so that it no longer threatens us.  Let us follow God’s ways, because they are right.  If we walk in His ways our path will be smooth, but if we rebel against Him, we will stumble and fall, facing constant struggles.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.