Hosea Chapter 4 verse 18 Holy Bible

ASV Hosea 4:18

Their drink is become sour; they play the harlot continually; her rulers dearly love shame.
read chapter 4 in ASV

BBE Hosea 4:18

Their drink has become bitter; they are completely false; her rulers take pleasure in shame.
read chapter 4 in BBE

DARBY Hosea 4:18

Their drink is sour; they give themselves up to whoredom; her great men passionately love [their] shame.
read chapter 4 in DARBY

KJV Hosea 4:18

Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye.
read chapter 4 in KJV

WBT Hosea 4:18


read chapter 4 in WBT

WEB Hosea 4:18

Their drink has become sour. They play the prostitute continually. Her rulers dearly love their shameful way.
read chapter 4 in WEB

YLT Hosea 4:18

Sour `is' their drink, They have gone diligently a-whoring, Her protectors have loved shame thoroughly.
read chapter 4 in YLT

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 18, 19. - The first of these two verses gives a picture of the degeneracy of the times; the second predicts the destruction that would ensue. Their drink is sour (margin, is gone): they have committed whoredom continually. If the first clause be taken literally, (1) it denotes a charge of drunkenness preferred against Ephraim. To this vice the people of the northern kingdom, as is well known, were addicted: the wine, from oft-repeated potations, became sour in the stomach and produced loathsome eructations. (2) Some, connecting closely the first and second clauses, and translating as in the margin, explain the meaning to be that "when their intoxication is gone they commit whoredom." But though drunkenness and debauchery frequently go together, it is rather during the former than afterwards that the latter is indulged in. (3) The first clause had better be understood figuratively, and the latter either literally or figuratively, or both. Thus the sense is the degeneracy of principle among the people in general, or rather among the principal men of that day. By the finest wine becoming vapid, the prophet represents the leading men of the nation, on whom so much depended and from whom so much might be expected, as becoming unprincipled, and as being addicted to immorality or idolatry, or probably both (hazneh hiznu): "whoring they have committed whoredom." . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(18, 19) The Authorised version is here very defective. Translate, Their carousal hath become degraded; with whoring they whore. Her shields love shame. A blast hath seized her in its wings, so that they are covered with shame for their offerings. "Shields" mean the princes of the people, as in Psalm 47:9. The fern. "her" in these verses refers to Ephraim, in accordance with the common Hebrew idiom. The change of person to the masculine plural is characteristic of the style of Hebrew prophecy. The storm-wind hath seized upon her with its wings--carried her away like a swarm of locusts or a baffled bird.