Hosea 5:8-13. A warning to Ephraim and Judah. God's wrath will be poured out against them because they have "become like those who remove the landmark" and are "determined to go after vanity." They shall become a place of desolation in the day of punishment. Because of their misdeeds, God is like a moth to Ephraim and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

God's wrath is slow in building, thank goodness, but it does reach a boiling point. God loves Ephraim and Judah, but he knows, for their own good, they have to suffer in order to turn back to him. And they will suffer, once the consequences of their actions become dire enough. God says "I declare what is sure," but the suffering will be their own doing. God is not preparing punishments for them, rather he is like a moth or like dry rot. Their misdeeds are slow slowly eating away at their foundation. What they have built or made will collapse and disintegrate because its foundation will crumble (it is built on sand, as Jesus would say).

This is really just what actually happens when we turn from God - things fall apart, the center cannot hold because we have removed the "landmarks" and ordered ourselves around the wrong center, around something that is not God. This is happening now - our foundations have been destroyed by our sin and we are tottering, and maybe even be falling.

But God always protects his faithful. So keep the landmarks in place to find your way back to him, then turn back to him, and be not afraid.