Hosea 13:14 stands in a difficult judgment context and its translation has been debated. It invokes the powers of death and Sheol and asks, in language that can be rendered either as a promise of ransom or as a summons for death's plagues, "Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O Sheol, is your destruction?" Whatever the precise force within Hosea's immediate judgment oracle, the verse provides biblical language in which death itself is confronted as an enemy under God's sovereign authority.

First Corinthians 15:54-57 takes up this language, together with Isaiah 25:8, in Paul's triumphant explanation of the resurrection. After declaring that mortality will put on immortality, Paul asks, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" and then gives thanks to God, who gives believers victory through Jesus Christ. The New Testament application is therefore explicit and powerful: Christ's resurrection breaks death's ultimate claim, and the future resurrection of His people completes that victory. Hosea does not by itself describe the death and resurrection of Jesus in detail, but Paul deliberately uses its challenge to death to proclaim the victory God has accomplished through Christ.