Hosea 2

1. “Say to your brethren, Ammi, My peopleand to your sisters, Ruhamah. having obtained mercy

2. Contend! Contend with your mother, for she is not My wife, nor am I her husband. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts,

3. Lest I strip her naked and set her out as in the day that she was born; and lest I make her as the wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

4. And I will not have mercy on her children, for they are the children of whoredoms,

5. For their mother has prostituted herself. She who conceived them has done shamefully, for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

6. Therefore behold, I will hedge your way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

7. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them. She shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now,’

8. For she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

9. So I will return and take away My grain in its time, and My wine in its season, and will recover My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness.

10. And now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of My hand.

11. I will also cause all her joy to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.

12. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, ‘They are my rewards that my lovers have given me.’ And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13. And I will visit on her the days of the Baalim, in which she burned incense to them, and she adorned herself with her nose rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers and forgot Me,” says the LORD.

14. “Therefore, behold, I will lure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.

15. And I will give her vineyards to her from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope. And she shall sing there, 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 be in that day,” says the LORD, “you shall call Me Ishi, My husband and shall no more call Me Baali,My lord

17. For I will take away the names of the Baalim out of her mouth, and they will no more be remembered by their name.

18. And in that day I will make a covenant for them, with the beasts of the field, and with the birds of the heavens, and with the creeping things of the ground. And I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

19. And I will betroth you to Me forever. Yea, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

20. I will even betroth you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.

21. And it will be in that day that I will answer,” says the LORD. “I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth,

22. And the earth shall answer with grain and wine and oil. And they shall answer Jezreel.

23. And I will sow her to Me in the earth. And I will have mercy on her that was shown no mercy. And I will say to her that was not My people, ‘You are My people.’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God.’ ”