Hosea’s Wife and Children

2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, c“Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have dchildren of whoredom, for ethe land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

4 And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while fI will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and gI will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 And on that day hI will break the bow of Israel iin the Valley of Jezreel.”

6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, j“Call her name No Mercy,1 for kI will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. 7 But lI will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I mwill not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

8 When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. 9 And the Lord said, n“Call his name Not My People,2 for oyou are not my people, and I am not your God.”3

10 4 Yet pthe number of the children of Israel shall be qlike the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. rAnd sin the place where it was said to them, o“You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, t“Children5 of uthe living God.” 11 And vthe children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and wthey shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Israel’s Unfaithfulness Punished

2 1 Say to your brothers, x“You are my people,”2 and to your sisters, y“You have received mercy.”3

2  “Plead with your mother, plead—

for zshe is not my wife,

and I am not her husband—

that she put away aher whoring from her face,

and her adultery from between her breasts;

3  lest bI strip her naked

and make her as cin the day she was born,

and dmake her like a wilderness,

and make her like a parched land,

and kill her with thirst.

4  eUpon her children also I will have no mercy,

fbecause they are children of whoredom.