Bible Strands
Hosea 6:4
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker is God addressing both the northern kingdom (Ephraim) and southern kingdom (Judah) in the immediate aftermath of a call to pursue His knowledge and just before a pronouncement of prophetic judgment.
The words — The Hebrew חַסְדְּכֶם (chasdechem) translates as your covenant loyalty, while עֲנָן (anan) supplies the concrete image of a cloud or morning mist.
The thread — The same meteorological simile for vanished devotion appears in Hosea 13:3 to forecast national collapse, and the cycle of post-judgment seeking matches the pattern recorded in Psalms 78:34.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to measure religious commitment against its duration, exposing any devotion that evaporates under pressure or time.
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
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.
Cross-references
- Psalms 78:34 When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.
- Hosea 11:8 How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!
- Hosea 13:3 Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.
- Psalms 106:12 Then they believed His promises and sang His praise.
- Matthew 13:21 But since he has no root, he remains for only a season. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
- Luke 13:7 So he said to the keeper of the vineyard, ‘Look, for the past three years I have come to search for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Therefore cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
- 2 Peter 2:20 If indeed they have escaped the corruption of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only to be entangled and overcome by it again, their final condition is worse than it was at first.
- Luke 19:41 As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it
- Judges 2:18 Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.
- Isaiah 5:3 “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard.