The Book of the Prophet Hosea 2

 The Book of the Prophet Hosea 2

1 Say to your brothers, ‘Ammi,’ and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah.’

2 Contend with your mother, contend with her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; let her put away her whoredoms from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts.

3 Lest I leave her naked, and expose her as on the day she was born, and make her like a desert, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst,

4 And have no pity on her children, for they are children of whoredoms.

5 For their mother is a whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she says, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns; And I will raise a wall of barrier so that she cannot find her paths.

7 She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, for then it was better for me than now.”

8 She does not realize that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

9 Therefore, I will return and take away my grain in its season and my new wine in its appointed time; and I will take away my wool and my linen, which covered her nakedness.

10 And now I will expose her wickedness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her from my hand.

11 And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.

12 And I will destroy her vine and her fig tree, of which she says, “This is the wages that my lovers have given me”; therefore I will make them a forest, and the wild beasts of the field shall devour them.

13 And I will punish her for the days of Baal, when she burned incense to it, and adorned herself with her earrings and her necklaces, and went after her lovers, but forgot me, says the Lord.

14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

15 And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope; and there she shall sing, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me, My husband; and shalt call me no more, My Baal.

17 And I will remove the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and their names shall no more be remembered.

18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will remove the bow, and the sword, and war from the earth, and will make them lie down safely.

19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever: I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in tender mercies.

20 And I will betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord.

21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will answer, saith the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth.

22 And the earth shall respond to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil; and these shall respond to Jezreel.

23 And I will sow her for myself in the land, and have compassion on Lo-Ruhamah; and I will say to Lo-Ammi, “You are my people,” and he shall say, “You are my God!”