Welcome to this Daily PBJ devotional. Read 1 Kings 1, Hosea 3 and 4, and Psalms 117 and 118. This devotional is about Hosea 3 and 4. Then the Lord said to me, Go, show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, even though they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols. So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver, and a homer, and a letheck of barley. Then I said to her, You must live with me for many days, you must not be promiscuous or belong to another, and I will do the same for you. For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or idol. Afterward the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his goodness in the last days. Hosea 4. 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. cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant. One act of bloodshed follows another. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away. With the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea disappear. But let no man contend, let no man offer reproof, for your people are like those who contend with a priest. You will stumble by day, and the prophet will stumble with you by night, so I will destroy your mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as my priests, since you have forgotten the law of your God. I will also forget your children. The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against me. They exchanged their glory for a thing of disgrace. They feed on the sins of my people and set their hearts on iniquity. and it shall be like people, like priest. I will punish both of them for their ways, and repay them for their deeds. They will eat, but not be satisfied. They will be promiscuous, but not multiply. For they have abandoned the Lord to give themselves to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding. My people consult their wooden idols, And their divining-rods inform them, For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray, And they have played the harlot against their god. They sacrifice on the mountaintops, And burn offerings on the hills, Under oak, poplar, and terebinth, Because their shade is pleasant, And so your daughters turn to prostitution, And your daughters-in-law to adultery. 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. Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt. Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-Avon, and do not swear an oath, as surely as the Lord lives. For Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer. Can the Lord now shepherd them like lambs in an open meadow? Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone. When their liquor is gone, they turn to prostitution. Their rulers dearly love disgrace. The whirlwind has wrapped them in its wings, and their sacrifices will bring them shame. This is God's word. Hosea 4.6a is probably the best-known saying from the book of Hosea. It says, this time from the NIV, my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. That verse, that piece of a verse, is often quoted like a proverb even in our secular world. The way that it is used in the secular world suggests that more education is the answer for every human problem. If people were just more knowledgeable, they would not be destroyed. I do think that knowledge is important, and perhaps you could extend the application of this verse into a principle that ignorance, in general, is damaging. Maybe you could get there. But that's not the meaning, that's not the message that the Lord is sending through Hosea in this verse. The lack of knowledge God decries here is a lack of knowing Him. The verse comes in the larger context of Israel's unfaithfulness to God and their unfaithfulness to their covenant with him. You can see Hosea 3.1 and chapter 4 verse 1b and 2 for that. Toward the end of chapter 4 verse 1, the phrase, no acknowledgment of God in the land could, should be translated. No knowledge of God in the land as the ESV, for instance, translates it. One of the charges the Lord brings against his people then is that they don't know him. That's what verse 1 is saying. The consequence of not knowing him is that my people are destroyed. And why did the people lack knowledge of God? Verse 6b says, Because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you as my priests. Because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. That's the point. They ignored God's Word, and that's what made them ignorant of it. The Lord traced the ignorance of his people back to the unfaithful teaching of the priests. See, one of the roles of the priest is to teach God's law to his people. But the priests had ignored God's law. Whatever they were teaching was so much less than the greatness of God. For verse 7 says, they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful. It seems that spiritual leaders in all ages and all eras can be tempted to move away from teaching God's Word to teaching something else. Idolatry, teaching indulgences, psychology, or whatever. And the result of moving away from God's Word in our teaching is that God's people no longer know Him. Having been deprived of his word, they have no means by which to know who he truly is and what he is truly like. Churches today are filled with big entertainment and therapeutic messages, but very little content about God. When people do not know God, their worship becomes shallow and self-centered, and their desire to learn and obey his commands starts to dry up. This is why it is important to teach God's Word in our churches and to read God's Word in our homes and on our own. I hope these daily scripture readings, most importantly, and also my devotionals, have helped you to know God better. And if you have found this devotional to be helpful in knowing God better, why don't you subscribe to receive them every day in your email? Go to dailypbj.com slash subscribe and just enter your email address. And this is completely free and every day you'll receive an email from me with a link to the daily readings and my daily devotional. Give it a try. Go to dailypbj.com slash subscribe. 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