Hosea 9:14

‘Give them, O YHWH - What will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.'

Moved by what he sees before him at the feast Hosea calls on YHWH to act against the people in judgment. As he ponders what to ask for, he turns his thoughts to YHWH's words in Hosea 9:12, and in consequence asks for their fulfilment. Let Israel's women be given ‘miscarrying wombs and dry breasts', reversing the promised blessings in Exodus 23:26; Genesis 49:29. It sounds harsh, but it was asking that YHWH carry out His threatened curses, and at the same time it contains within it a thought of mercy. For his prayer is in response to the fact that if children are born it will be to a fate worse than death. It were thus better in his view that they were never born.