Chapter 4
Hosea 4:1-19 (MSG)
Attention all Israelites! God’s Message! God indicts the whole population: “No one is faithful. No one loves. No one knows the first thing about God.
All this cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex, sheer anarchy, one murder after another!
And because of all this, the very land itself weeps and everything in it is grief-stricken— animals in the fields and birds on the wing, even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless.
“But don’t look for someone to blame. No finger pointing! You, priest, are the one in the dock.
You stumble around in broad daylight, And then the prophets take over and stumble all night. Your mother is as bad as you.
My people are ruined because they don’t know what’s right or true. Because you’ve turned your back on knowledge, I’ve turned my back on you priests. Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God, I’m no longer recognizing your children.
The more priests, the more sin. They traded in their glory for shame.
They pig out on my people’s sins. They can’t wait for the latest in evil.
The result: You can’t tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I’m on my way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they’ve lived.
They’ll eat and be as hungry as ever, have sex and get no satisfaction. They walked out on me, their God, for a life of rutting with whores.
“Wine and whiskey leave my people in a stupor.
They ask questions of a dead tree, expect answers from a sturdy walking stick. Drunk on sex, they can’t find their way home. They’ve replaced their God with their genitals.
They worship on the tops of mountains, make a picnic out of religion. Under the oaks and elms on the hills they stretch out and take it easy. Before you know it, your daughters are whores and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.
But I’m not going after your whoring daughters or the adulterous wives of your sons. It’s the men who pick up the whores that I’m after, the men who worship at the holy whorehouses— a stupid people, ruined by whores!
“You’ve ruined your own life, Israel— but don’t drag Judah down with you! Don’t go to the sex shrine at Gilgal, don’t go to that sin city Bethel, Don’t go around saying ‘God bless you’ and not mean it, taking God’s name in vain.
Israel is stubborn as a mule. How can God lead him like a lamb to open pasture?
Ephraim is addicted to idols. Let him go.
When the beer runs out, it’s sex, sex, and more sex. Bold and sordid debauchery— how they love it!
The whirlwind has them in its clutches. Their sex-worship leaves them finally impotent.
Mark 4:1-9, 11-34 (MSG)
He went back to teaching by the sea. A crowd built up to such a great size that he had to get into an offshore boat, using the boat as a pulpit as the people pushed to the water’s edge.
He taught by using stories, many stories.
“Listen. What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed.
As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road and birds ate it.
Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots,
so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly.
Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled among the weeds and nothing came of it.
Some fell on good earth and came up with a flourish, producing a harvest exceeding his wildest dreams.
“Are you listening to this? Really listening?”
He told them, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight.
These are people— Whose eyes are open but don’t see a thing, Whose ears are open but don’t understand a word, Who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven.”
He continued, “Do you see how this story works? All my stories work this way.
“The farmer plants the Word.
Some people are like the seed that falls on the hardened soil of the road. No sooner do they hear the Word than Satan snatches away what has been planted in them.
“And some are like the seed that lands in the gravel. When they first hear the Word, they respond with great enthusiasm.
But there is such shallow soil of character that when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
“The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news
but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it.
“But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.”
Jesus went on: “Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed? Don’t you put it up on a table or on the mantel?
We’re not keeping secrets, we’re telling them; we’re not hiding things, we’re bringing them out into the open.
“Are you listening to this? Really listening?
“Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way.
Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.”
Then Jesus said, “God’s kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man
who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows—he has no idea how it happens.
The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain.
When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time!
“How can we picture God’s kingdom? What kind of story can we use?
It’s like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go,
yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it.”
With many stories like these, he presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity.
He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots.
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