Hosea

2

4 Denounce your mother, denounce

4 – for she is not my wife,

4 nor am I her husband.

4 Let her rid her face of her ornaments

4 and her breasts of her lewd idols;

5 or I will strip her naked

5 as on the day of her birth;

5 I will reduce her to an arid land,

5 making of her a desert –

5 I will let her die of thirst.

6 How could I love her children?

6 They are children of adultery;

7 their mother has played the harlot

7 they are children of debauchery.

7 She said, “I will go after my lovers,

7 who give me my bread and water,

7 my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

10 Yet she would not acknowledge that it was I

10 who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil,

10 and the silver and gold

10 with which this people made their Baals.

11 So I will take back my grain when it ripens

11 and my new wine when it is ready;

11 I will take back my wool and my flax

11 which I gave to cover her nudity.

12 Before her lovers I will lay bare her shame

12 and no one can rescue her from my power.

13 I will bring an end to all her gladness,

13 her monthly feasts, sabbaths and celebrations.

14 I will lay waste her vines,

14 and her fig trees, for she said,

14 “My lovers gave them to me.”

14 I will turn them into thickets

14 to be ravaged by wild beasts.

15 I will punish her for the feast days

15 when she brought burnt offerings to the Baals,

15 decked herself with her gaudy jewels,

15 ran after her lovers and forgot me, says Yahweh.

8 With thorns, therefore, I will block her path,

8 wall her and not let her find her way out.

9 Pursuing her lovers,

9 she will not overtake them;

9 looking for her lovers, she will not find them.

9 Then she will say, “I will go back to my husband

9 for I was better off then than now.”

16 So I am going to allure her,

16 lead her once more into the desert,

16 where I can speak to her tenderly.

17 Then I will give back her vineyards,

17 make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.

17 There she will answer me as in her youth,

17 as when she came out of the land of Egypt.

18 On that day, Yahweh says,

18 you will call me my husband,

18 and never again: my Baal.

19 I will take the names of Baals from her lips

19 and no longer will they be invoked.

20 That day on her behalf I will make a covenant

20 with beasts of the field and birds of the air,

20 with creatures creeping upon the ground.

20 I will wipe out the sword and war in the land;

20 I will make people rest safe and secure.

21 You will be my spouse forever,

21 betrothed in justice and integrity;

21 we will be united in love and tenderness.

22 I will espouse you in faithfulness

22 and you will come to know Yahweh.

23 This is what Yahweh says of those days,

23 “I will be at peace with the heavens,

23 and they will respond to the earth;

24 the earth will respond to the grain, wine and oil,

24 which will come up to the expectation of Jezreel.

25 I will sow them for myself in the land;

25 I will show my love to Unloved;

25 I will say to Not-my-people, “You are my people”;

25 and they will answer, “You are my God.”

2

1 Yet the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, that cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” they shall be called “children of the living God.”

2 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, they will appoint one leader to rule over them, and they will come up out of the land. For there will be a great victory in Jezreel. 3 You will call your brothers My-people, and your sisters My-loved-ones.

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