You have ploughed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your power and in the multitude of your warriors, therefore the tumult of war shall rise against your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off. (Hosea 10: 13-15)

What do I trust? In what do I have confidence? Who do I trust? Of what am I certain?

A colleague who once knew me well commented he had never known anyone "less certain yet still decisive."

I am not confident. Certainly not of my power. Nor my insight. Nor even of past lessons or profound principles.

Hosea clearly intends that I should trust in God. But I do not have the knowledge of or faith in or relationship with God to truly trust.

So I keep plowing, hoping I am opening the hard soil that separates me from God and not a field of wickedness.

This is the Bible's only mention of Beth-Arbel or Shalman. We have no other word of this disaster.

Above is King Jehu of Israel (842-814BC) giving homage to Salamaneser of Assyria, about a century before Hosea.