The revolters; all those that have cast off the law of God, both in matters of religion and civil government.
Are profound; dig deep to hide their counsels, or have taken deep root since their apostasy from God, and revolt from the house of David.
To make slaughter: all their religion is but a butchering of cattle, no sacrifice to God; or, which is worse, a murdering of men.
Though I, Hosea, have been a rebuker; a preacher, who ill the name and word of God have sharply inveighed against their brutish religion and their bloody slaughters.
Of them all: none that have been guilty have escaped the reproof; I have declaimed against idolatrous priests and bloody usurpers, such as were in those times, Shallum, Menahem, and Pekah.