Hosea 4:14

I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men themselves go off with prostitutes and offer sacrifices with shrine prostitutes. So a people without understanding will come to ruin.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The Lord speaks through the prophet Hosea to the northern kingdom of Israel, addressing the immediate aftermath of their idolatrous sacrifices on high places described in Hosea 4:13.

The words — לֹֽא אֶפְקֹד (lo- 'efkod) translates literally as "I will not visit [judgment]" upon בְּנוֹתֵי/כֶם (beneite/khem) "your daughters" and כַּלּוֹתֵי/כֶם (kalote/khem) "your daughters-in-law."

The thread — The text states that men join prostitutes and shrine prostitutes, causing a people without understanding to come to ruin, a pattern of covenant failure outlined in Hosea 4:1 and paralleled in 1 Corinthians 6:16 regarding bodily union with a prostitute.

Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that God's temporary withholding of judgment does not endorse the sin, but plainly warns that collective spiritual ignorance guarantees national collapse.

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

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.

Cross-references

Hosea 4:1 Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a case against the people of the land: “There is no truth, no loving devotion, and no knowledge of God in the land!
1 Corinthians 6:16 Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”
Ephesians 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.
Deuteronomy 23:17 No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute.
1 Kings 14:23 They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
1 Kings 15:12 He banished the male shrine prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
2 Kings 23:7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.
Proverbs 28:5 Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD comprehend fully.
Isaiah 1:5 Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
Isaiah 44:18 They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand.