It looks too good to be true.

They were flourishing. They had all that they wanted. Then this:

 “I will have no compassion, even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.” (Hosea 13 v 15-16)

Even though … despite what it looked like … it was over.

Assyria came and decimated God’s people.

It is a repeated message. We have heard it before. It is awful. And it happened. Ephraim and Samaria were destroyed and it was brutal.

And as we read these solemn verses, in the background are the words also found in this chapter:

 (There is) no Saviour except me, v4.

Then they forgot me, v6.
“You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper, v9.

Do you think some may have remembered Hosea’s words of v4, v6 and v9 when they were being killed or taken into exile?

When your flourishing days are over and the opposite are happening you would think at last you would call upon your God?

You would think wouldn’t you?