Hosea 2

1* “Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’ * 2Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and her adulteries from between her breasts; Contend with your mother! and let her put away her prostitution from her face, 3and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst. Lest I strip her naked, and make her like a wilderness, 4for they are children of unfaithfulness; Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; 5She who conceived them has done shamefully; who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ For their mother has played the prostitute. for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, 6and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way. Therefore behold, * I will hedge up your way with thorns, 7but she won’t overtake them; but won’t find them. for then was it better with me than now.’ She will follow after her lovers, and she will seek them, Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband; 8and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, 9and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, 10and no one will deliver her out of my hand. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, 11her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies. I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: 12about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,’ and the animals of the field shall eat them. I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, 13to which she burned incense, and went after her lovers, and forgot me,” says Yahweh. I will visit on her the days of the Baals, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, 14and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. “Therefore behold, I will allure her, 15and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. I will give her vineyards from there, and she will respond there, 16“that you will call me ‘my husband,’ and no longer call me ‘my master.’ It will be in that day,” says Yahweh, 17and they will no longer be mentioned by name. For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, 18and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. and will make them lie down safely. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, 19Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion. I will betroth you to me forever. 20and you shall know Yahweh. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; 21“I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth; It will happen in that day, I will respond,” says Yahweh, 22and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel. 23and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, ‘You are my people;’ and they will say, ‘My God!’” I will sow her to me in the earth;