Hosea 5:14 “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with tno one to rescue them…(until they seek me) In their misery they will earnestly seek me.”
Hosea 6:5 (your love is like mist)…Therefore I cut you to pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you. For I desire mercy (besed, both right conduct to fellow man and/or loyalty to God), not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
Here in the same passage there seems to be contradiction, God is angry and takes responsibility as the aggressor but then claims to desire mercy. Hosea 5:5 seems to place the responsibility for stumbling on Israel, that Israel’s arrogance testifies against her and her own sin causes her to stumble. God withdraws himself and when they seek him for their own purposes they won’t find him.
then again in Hosea 5:10 “I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water…” v. 14 “I will be like a lion to Ephraim…”
Even Peter in the new testament seems to allude to God’s need to judge sin in the early church, seems to describe the persecution as God’s weapon of judgement:
1 Peter 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”