Hosea 4:11
New International Version
to prostitution; old wine and new wine take away their understanding.

New Living Translation
to worship other gods. “Wine has robbed my people of their understanding.

English Standard Version
whoredom, wine, and new wine, which take away the understanding.

Berean Standard Bible
to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding.

King James Bible
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

New King James Version
“Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart.

New American Standard Bible
Infidelity, wine, and new wine take away the understanding.

NASB 1995
Harlotry, wine and new wine take away the understanding.

NASB 1977
Harlotry, wine, and new wine take away the understanding.

Legacy Standard Bible
Harlotry, wine, and new wine take away a heart of wisdom.

Amplified Bible
Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away the mind and the [spiritual] understanding.

Christian Standard Bible
Promiscuity, wine, and new wine take away one’s understanding.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Promiscuity, wine, and new wine take away one’s understanding.

American Standard Version
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding.

Contemporary English Version
and have been unfaithful to me, their LORD. My people, you are foolish because of too much pleasure and too much wine.

English Revised Version
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Prostitutes, old wine, and new wine have robbed them of their senses.

Good News Translation
The LORD says, "Wine, both old and new, is robbing my people of their senses!

International Standard Version
"Sexual immorality, wine, and fresh wine seduce the heart of my people.

Majority Standard Bible
to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding.

NET Bible
Old and new wine take away the understanding of my people.

New Heart English Bible
Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding.

Webster's Bible Translation
Lewdness and wine and new wine take away the heart.

World English Bible
Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding.
Literal Translations
Literal Standard Version
Whoredom, and wine, and new wine, take the heart,

Young's Literal Translation
Whoredom, and wine, and new wine, take the heart,

Smith's Literal Translation
Fornication and wine and new wine will take away the heart.
Catholic Translations
Douay-Rheims Bible
Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding.

Catholic Public Domain Version
Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness, have taken away their heart.

New American Bible
to prostitution. Aged wine and new wine take away understanding.

New Revised Standard Version
whoredom. Wine and new wine take away the understanding.
Translations from Aramaic
Lamsa Bible
And they love whoredom, and wine and drunkenness take away their heart.

Peshitta Holy Bible Translated
And they loved fornication, and wine and drunkenness have taken their heart
OT Translations
JPS Tanakh 1917
Harlotry, wine, and new wine take away the heart.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
The heart of my people has gladly engaged in fornication and wine and strong drink.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
God's Charges Against Israel
10They will eat but not be satisfied; they will be promiscuous but not multiply. For they have stopped obeying the LORD. 11Promiscuity, wine, and new wine take away understanding. 12My 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.…

Cross References
Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

Isaiah 28:7
These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.

Galatians 5:19-21
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; / idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, / and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Ephesians 5:18
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, / nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

Proverbs 23:29-35
Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has needless wounds? Who has bloodshot eyes? / Those who linger over wine, who go to taste mixed drinks. / Do not gaze at wine while it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. ...

Romans 13:13
Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

1 Peter 4:3
For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.

Jeremiah 13:27
Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

Habakkuk 2:15
Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin until they are drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!

1 Thessalonians 5:6-8
So then, let us not sleep as the others do, but let us remain awake and sober. / For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. / But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of our hope of salvation.

Luke 21:34
But watch yourselves, or your hearts will be weighed down by dissipation, drunkenness, and the worries of life—and that day will spring upon you suddenly like a snare.

Isaiah 5:11-12
Woe to those who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger into the evening, to be inflamed by wine. / At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the LORD and fail to see the work of His hands.

1 Corinthians 5:11
But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a verbal abuser, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

Revelation 17:2
The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and those who dwell on the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her immorality.”


Treasury of Scripture

Prostitution and wine and new wine take away the heart.

take.

Hosea 4:12
My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.

Proverbs 6:32
But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

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Hosea 4
1. God denounces judgments on Israel, for their aggravated impieties and iniquities.
12. He exposes the ignorance and wickedness of the priests,
13. and moral dissolution of the people,
14. he will leave their wives and daughters to commit lewdness, without present punishment.
15. He warns Judah, not to imitate Israel's crimes, which are still further reproved.














Harlotry, wine, and new wine
The verse begins with a triad of elements that are often associated with moral and spiritual decline in the biblical narrative. The Hebrew word for "harlotry" (זְנוּת, zenut) is frequently used in the Old Testament to describe not only physical unfaithfulness but also spiritual infidelity, where Israel is seen as being unfaithful to God by pursuing other deities. This imagery is consistent with the overarching theme of Hosea, where Israel's idolatry is likened to adultery. "Wine" (יַיִן, yayin) and "new wine" (תִּירוֹשׁ, tirosh) are often symbols of abundance and blessing in the Bible, yet here they are depicted as contributing to Israel's downfall. Historically, wine was a staple in ancient Near Eastern culture, but its misuse is a metaphor for indulgence and excess that leads to moral decay.

Take away understanding
The phrase "take away understanding" (יִקַּח לֵב, yiqqach lev) is a powerful depiction of the consequences of indulgence in sin. The Hebrew word for "understanding" (לֵב, lev) is often translated as "heart" and represents the center of intellect, emotion, and will in Hebrew thought. The idea here is that these vices—harlotry, wine, and new wine—dull the spiritual and moral senses, leading individuals away from wisdom and discernment. This aligns with the biblical principle that sin blinds and enslaves, preventing people from perceiving and following God's truth. The historical context of Hosea's ministry to the Northern Kingdom of Israel underscores this message, as the nation was on the brink of judgment due to its persistent idolatry and moral corruption. The verse serves as a timeless warning about the dangers of allowing worldly pleasures to cloud spiritual judgment and fidelity to God.

(11) Heart.--The whole inner life, consumed by these licentious indulgences.

Verse 11. - It makes no great difference whether we regard this verse as concluding the foregoing or commencing a new paragraph, though we prefer the latter mode of connecting it. It states the debasing influence which debauchery and drunkenness are known to exercise over both head and heart: they dull the faculties of the former and deaden the affections of the latter. The heart is not only the seat of the affections, as with us; it comprises also the, intellect and hill; while the word יִקַּת is not so much to take away as to captivate the heart, Rashi gives the former sense: "The whoredom and drunkenness to which they are devoted take away their heart from me." Kimchi's explanation is judicious: "The whoredom to which they surrender themselves and the constant drunkenness which they practice take their heart, so that they have no understanding to perceive what is the way of goodness along which they should go." He further distinguishes the tirosh from the yayin, remarking that the former is the new wine which takes the heart and suddenly intoxicates. The prophet, having had occasion to mention the sin of whoredom in ver. 10, makes a general statement about the consequences of that sin combined with drunkenness in ver. 10, as not only debasing, but depriving men of the right use of their reason and the proper exercise of their natural affections. The following verses afford abundant evidence of all this in the insensate conduct of Israel at the time referred to.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Promiscuity,
זְנ֛וּת (zə·nūṯ)
Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 2184: Adultery, infidelity, idolatry

wine,
וְיַ֥יִן (wə·ya·yin)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 3196: Wine, intoxication

and new wine
וְתִיר֖וֹשׁ (wə·ṯî·rō·wōš)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 8492: Must, fresh grape-juice, fermented wine

take away
יִֽקַּֽח־ (yiq·qaḥ-)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 3947: To take

understanding.
לֵֽב׃ (lêḇ)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 3820: The heart, the feelings, the will, the intellect, centre


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OT Prophets: Hosea 4:11 Prostitution wine and new wine take away (Ho Hs Hos.)
Hosea 4:10
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