Hosea 5:3

"I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me; for now, O Ephraim, thou hast played the harlot, Israel is defiled."

Nothing can be hidden from the Lord. It is not Hosea who is the speaker here, but God. Everything is exposed and laid open before the eternal God. A statement like this implies that Ephraim might indeed have thought that his follies were concealed. The pagan priests had veneered their godless licentiousness with some of the forms and occasions which originally had been connected with God's true religion; but underneath that superficially acceptable exterior, the religion of the Northern kingdom was raw, shameless paganism, pandering to the basest lusts of the body. All of this is stated in the words "played the harlot ... defiled." They even swore "As Jehovah liveth," (Hosea 4:15) and mentioned the God of all creation along with the bull-gods of Canaan; but a few concessions of that kind were powerless to alter the essential reprobacy of the whole system. As Meyers said:

"The mere fact that a religious service is called by the name of the Lord does not make it so. Only when it is the expression of His will and purpose and reflects His character can it be said to be from Him. That is just what Israel's religion did not do; it reflected the character of Baal."[8]

Note that in this passage, as frequently in Hosea (some 37 times) Ephraim is the name used for Israel. Ephraim was almost as large as Judah, the largest of the twelve tribes; and it was always jealous and envious of Judah. The tribe of Ephraim led the defection of the ten tribes to form the Northern kingdom; and it also enthusiastically supported the calf-worship instituted by Jeroboam I at Dan and at Bethel. All of the children of Israel eventually were corrupted through Ephraim's leadership; and it was thus fitting that his name should finally become that of the whole northern Israel. Given summed it up this way:

This powerful tribe, ever envious of Judah, was the ringleader in the calf-worship of Jeroboam, and other idolatries; and through Ephraim's evil influence, the other tribes, and so all Israel were defiled.[9]