Hosea 2

¹ Say to your brothers, "Ammi,"
and to your sisters, "Ruhamah."

² Contend with your mother, contend—
for she is not my wife
and I am not her husband—
let her remove her promiscuity from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts,

³ lest I strip her naked
and expose her as on the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
set her like a parched land,
and kill her with thirst.

⁴ And on her children I will have no compassion,
for they are children of promiscuity.

⁵ For their mother has been promiscuous;
she who conceived them has acted 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, I am about to hedge up your way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her
so she cannot find her paths.

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

⁸ But she did not know
that it was I who gave her the grain,
the new wine and the fresh oil,
and who lavished silver upon her
and gold—which they made into Baal.

⁹ Therefore I will turn back
and take my grain in its time
and my new wine in its season,
and I will snatch away my wool and my flax
that were to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now I will uncover her shame
before the eyes of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from my hand.

¹¹ I will put an end to all her rejoicing:
her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths—
all her appointed feasts.

¹² I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said, "These are my wages
that my lovers gave me."
I will make them a thicket,
and the beasts of the field will devour them.

¹³ I will bring account upon her
for the days of the Baals
when she burned incense to them
and adorned herself with her rings and jewelry
and went after her lovers—
but me she forgot.
—Oracle of the LORD.

¹⁴ Therefore, look—I myself am about to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak to her heart.

¹⁵ I will give her vineyards from there,
and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope.
She will respond there as in the days of her youth,
as on the day she came up from the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ "On that day—oracle of the LORD—
you will call me 'My husband'
and no longer call me 'My Baal.'"

¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth,
and they will no longer be remembered by their name.

¹⁸ I will make a covenant for them on that day
with the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
Bow and sword and warfare
I will break from the land,
and I will make them lie down in safety.

¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever.
I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice,
in loyal love and in compassion.

²⁰ I will betroth you to me in faithfulness,
and you will know the LORD.

²¹ On that day I will respond
—oracle of the LORD—
I will respond to the heavens,
and they will respond to the earth,

²² and the earth will respond
to the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

²³ I will sow her for myself in the land,
and I will have compassion on Lo-ruhamah,
and I will say to Lo-ammi, 'You are my people,'
and he will say, 'My God.'