Hosea challenges Israel with a farming metaphor, beginning with the positive:

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. (Hosea 10.12, ESV)

“Sow righteousness…” And you can’t sow (I’m told) without breaking up the ground first. “Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD.” Repentance, anyone?

But if you don’t?

You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed… (Hosea 10.13, 14, ESV)

Instead of sowing righteousness and reaping love, Israel sowed iniquity and reaped injustice. Their trust was “in their own way” AND in their military might.

Sound familiar? And there’s a “therefore:”

“…the tumult of war…and all your fortresses shall be destroyed…”

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Galatians 6.7, 8, ESV)

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. (Psalm 20.7, ESV)