This verse begins with the Hebrew waw conjunction (literally “And” [King James Version]), which may be omitted (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation).

As robbers lie in wait for a man: In this context the Hebrew word for robbers refers to a roving band of people that raid an area. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh says “bandits.” Lie in wait for a man refers to a planned robbery or “ambush” (Good News Translation). The Hebrew word for a man should be interpreted as a generic expression, referring to people in general, so it is better rendered “someone” (New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation), “a victim” ( NET Bible), or “a person” (God’s Word). Although the meaning of this line is uncertain, as the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, the second half of this verse hardly leaves room for a different interpretation than the one in Revised Standard Version. The Septuagint assumes a different root of the Hebrew word rendered lie in wait for with the meaning “violence” or “power” (as in Eccl 4.1), but we do not recommend this reading.

So the priests are banded together follows the Peshitta rather than the Hebrew, which reads “a band of priests.” There is no compelling reason to abandon the Hebrew text in this instance, unless the receptor language calls for it. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project prefers the Hebrew here (a {B} decision). The Hebrew word for “band” may simply mean “group” or “company,” or it may be derogatory, referring to a worthless group or to one that has evil motives, that is, a “gang.” A model that follows the Hebrew for the first two lines of this verse is “The band [or, company] of priests is like [a band of] robbers who lie in wait for someone,” placing the priests first in the sentence for normal English structure of comparisons. Good News Translation is similar: “The priests are like a gang of robbers who wait in ambush for someone.” For priests see 4.4.

They murder on the way to Shechem: The pronoun they refers to the priests. On the way to Shechem indicates that the ambush occurs on the road mentioned here. Shechem was an ancient city in the center of Israel. Levites lived there, so it was a religious center (Josh 21.21). It was also a city of refuge, where a person who killed someone accidentally was supposed to be safe from revenge (Josh 20.7). Therefore murders by priests near Shechem were all the more condemnable.

Yea, they commit villainy: Yea renders the Hebrew word ki, which is an emphatic particle here, so it may also be translated “surely” or “indeed.” The Hebrew word for villainy refers to evil deeds or crimes that are deliberately planned, so a possible model for this line is “indeed, they fulfill their treacherous plans.” In some languages the natural discourse structure will call for this statement to come at the beginning of the verse, with the remainder of the verse showing how the plans were fulfilled. Good News Translation expresses it as a final commentary on the event: “And they do all this evil deliberately!” Their crimes form a pattern of behavior. The Hebrew word order in this line is unusual: first the noun and then the verb. This puts the atrocious behavior in focus. Many translations prefer to emphasize the shamefulness of the evil, saying “committing shameful crimes” (New International Version), “appalling behavior, indeed!” (Jerusalem Bible), “behold the horrors which they commit!” (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), “truly, their conduct is infamous!” (Bible de Jérusalem), “committing monstrous crime” (New American Bible), and “their deeds are outrageous” (New English Bible).

A translation model for this verse is:

• The gang of priests is like a mob of robbers,
they are lying in ambush for people.
They murder on the road to Shechem,
atrocious behavior indeed!

Quoted with permission from Dorn, Louis & van Steenbergen, Gerrit. A Handbook on Hosea. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .