The prophet Hosea in this passage starts praising Israel's achievements, its growth, its fruitfulness, its religiosity. Still, his praise was simply the prelude to his prophetic criticism of the falsity of their lives as God's chosen people.

After they returned from Egypt to the Promised Land and settled down, Israel gradually drifted away from God, and so comes the point of Hosea's apparent praise: "Their heart is false".

Jesus would one day repeat Hosea's criticism in words taken from Isaiah "this people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Mk 7:6). Thus making the prophetic criticism relevant for our lives, at least, as a reflection on ourselves and the necessary congruence of our activities and actions with the faith we profess.