Six ways to encounter God here
A passage is not only to be understood; it is to be lived with. Choose how you want to meet God in Hosea 4:2, and Living Bread opens it right there.
The passage in its setting
Meeting God in a verse begins with hearing it where it lives, in the flow of Hosea 4. Read it slowly, and let the focal verse settle into its own context.
1 Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
3 Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.
4 Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.
The web of Scripture around it
Where this passage echoes across the Bible, from the cross-reference graph, 14 connected Scriptures. Each one is a door to meet God there too.
- Hosea 6:9
And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:15
Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
- Micah 7:2
The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
- Jeremiah 6:7
As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds.
- Jeremiah 5:26
For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
- Jeremiah 5:7
How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves b…
- Hosea 7:1
When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoi…
- Jeremiah 7:6
If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
- Zechariah 7:9
Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:
- Hosea 10:4
They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.
- Zephaniah 3:1
Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
- Lamentations 4:13
For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
- Hosea 12:14
Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his LORD return unto him.
- Micah 2:1
Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
More to meet God in Hosea
How it points to Christ
Every Scripture ultimately leads to Jesus. See how the whole Bible points to Him in Christ in all Scripture, then meet Him for yourself.
