Bible Strands
Hosea 10:13
You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your mighty men,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Hosea delivers this oracle to the northern kingdom of Israel during a period of political instability and military reliance. The message contrasts their current spiritual state with the call to repentance in the preceding verse.
The words — חֲרַשְׁתֶּם (cha.rash.tem) and קְצַרְתֶּם (ke.tzar.Tem) denote the agricultural cycle of plowing and reaping, establishing the cause-and-effect structure of the verse. The text states they have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice before noting they have eaten the fruit of lies.
The thread — The plowing and reaping motif appears in Job 4:8, Galatians 6:7, and Proverbs 1:31. These passages similarly track the principle that moral actions yield corresponding consequences.
Why it lands — The verse demands an acknowledgment that political trust in human strength produces destructive outcomes. It requires the reader to recognize that self-reliance and deceit ultimately harvest their own ruin.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.
Cross-references
- Job 4:8 As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same.
- Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return.
- Proverbs 1:31 So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
- Proverbs 22:8 He who sows injustice will reap disaster, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.
- Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up.
- Psalms 62:10 Place no trust in extortion or false hope in stolen goods. If your riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.
- Proverbs 18:20 From the fruit of his mouth a man’s belly is filled; with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied.
- Psalms 33:16 No king is saved by his vast army; no warrior is delivered by his great strength.
- Psalms 52:7 “Look at the man who did not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his wealth and strengthened himself by destruction.”
- Proverbs 12:19 Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.