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 13:16 (NIV)
Welcome to my new series, Awkward Bible Passages. This will be a showcase of selections from the Bible difficult to reconcile with Christian theology, incredibly violent and hate-filled, commonly overlooked, or just plain not-fit-for-Sunday-School. Fortunately (or unfortunately), there is plenty of material ripe for the picking. It may behoove you to memorize some of these, and show them to your believing friends. They will often be accompanied by my own commentary, though some [such as the one above] speak for themselves. Note, these gruesome lines from Hosea are claimed to be the words of Yahweh spoken through his prophet.
"Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand." – Mark Twain
I'll do my best to keep things in context, and references are linked to biblegateway.com's website for quick reference. Unless otherwise noted, all citations are from the New International Version (NIV), © Zondervan.
