Hosea 2

1 “Say to your brothers—Ammi, || And to your sisters—Ruhamah. 2 Plead with your mother—plead || (For she is not My wife, and I am not her husband), || And she turns her whoredoms from before her, || And her adulteries from between her breasts, 3 Lest I strip her naked. And have set her up as in the day of her birth, || And have made her as a wilderness, || And have set her as a dry land, || And have put her to death with thirst. 4 And her sons I do not pity, || For they are sons of whoredoms, 5 For their mother has gone whoring, || Their conceiver has acted shamefully, || For she has said, I go after my lovers, || Those giving my bread and my water, || My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink. 6 Therefore, behold, I am hedging up your way with thorns, || And I have made a wall for her, || And her paths she does not find. 7 And she has pursued her lovers, || And she does not overtake them, || And has sought them, and does not find them, || And she has said: I go, and I return to my first husband, || For—better to me then than now. 8 And she did not know that I had given to her || The grain, and the new wine, and the oil. Indeed, I multiplied silver to her, || And the gold they prepared for Ba‘al. 9 Therefore I return, || And I have taken My grain in its season, || And My new wine in its appointed time, || And I have taken away My wool and My flax, covering her nakedness. 10 And now I reveal her dishonor before the eyes of her lovers, || And none deliver her out of My hand. 11 And I have caused all her joy to cease, || Her festival, her new moon, and her Sabbath, || Even all her appointed times, 12 And made desolate her vine and her fig tree, || Of which she said, They are a wage to me, || That my lovers have given to me, || And I have made them for a forest, || And a beast of the field has consumed them. 13 And I have charged on her the days of the Ba‘alim, || To whom she makes incense, || And puts on her ring and her ornament, || And goes after her lovers, || And forgot Me,” a declaration of YHWH. 14 “Therefore, behold, I am enticing her, || And have caused her to go to the wilderness, || And I have spoken to her heart, 15 And given to her her vineyards from there, || And the Valley of Achor for an opening of hope, || And she has responded there as in the days of her youth, || And as in the day of her coming up out of the land of Egypt. 16 And it has come to pass in that day,” || A declaration of YHWH, || “You call Me: My husband, || And do not call Me anymore: My lord. 17 And I have turned aside the names of the lords from her mouth, || And they are not remembered anymore by their name. 18 And I have made a covenant for them in that day, || With the beast of the field, || And with the bird of the heavens, || And the creeping thing of the ground, || And bow, and sword, and war I break from off the land, || And have caused them to lie down confidently. 19 And I have betrothed you to Me to a distant age, || And betrothed you to Me in righteousness, || And in judgment, and kindness, and mercies, 20 And betrothed you to Me in faithfulness, || And you have known YHWH. 21 And it has come to pass in that day, I answer,” || A declaration of YHWH, || “I answer the heavens, and they answer the earth. 22 And the earth answers the grain, || And the new wine, and the oil, || And they answer Jezreel. 23 And I have sowed her to Me in the land, || And I have pitied Lo-Ruhamah, || And I have said to Lo-Ammi, You are My people, || And he says, My God!”


Next: Chapter 3

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