Bible Strands
Hosea 4:2
Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet Hosea delivers the LORD’s indictment to the northern kingdom of Israel immediately after declaring the absence of covenant loyalty and divine knowledge in the land. The oracle pronounces the national breakdown of moral order as the direct consequence of that spiritual abandonment.
The words — The Hebrew פָּרָ֕צוּ (pa.Ra.tzu) literally means “broken out” or “rampant,” describing how the listed sins have violently breached social boundaries. The phrase וְ/דָמִ֥ים בְּ/דָמִ֖ים (ve./da.Mim be./da.Mim) translates to “bloods in bloods,” denoting repeated, unceasing acts of violence.
The thread — This pattern of rampant violence recurs in Hosea 6:9 where priests ambush travelers, Jeremiah 6:7 where a city’s violence flows like a gushing well, and Micah 7:2 where the upright perish as the wicked hunt for blood.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that systemic sin operates as a contagious outbreak rather than isolated failures. It requires the reader to trace physical and social decay directly to the prior loss of divine knowledge and covenant faithfulness.
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
By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
Cross-references
- Hosea 6:9 Like raiders who lie in ambush, so does a band of priests; they murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed atrocities.
- Jeremiah 6:7 As a well gushes its water, so she pours out her evil. Violence and destruction resound in her; sickness and wounds are ever before Me.
- Micah 7:2 The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,
- Jeremiah 5:7 “Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.
- Jeremiah 5:26 For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men.
- Jeremiah 7:6 if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm,
- Hosea 7:1 When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim will be exposed, as well as the crimes of Samaria. For they practice deceit and thieves break in; bandits raid in the streets.
- Isaiah 24:5 The earth is defiled by its people; they have transgressed the laws; they have overstepped the decrees and broken the everlasting covenant.
- Isaiah 48:1 “Listen to this, O house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, who have descended from the line of Judah, who swear by the name of the LORD, who invoke the God of Israel—but not in truth or righteousness—