Hosea 1:10–2:23

¹⁰⁴ 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.” ¹¹And ^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

2¹ 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;

³lest ^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.

^4eUpon her children also I will have no mercy,

^fbecause they are children of whoredom.

⁵For ^gtheir mother has played the whore;

she who conceived them has acted shamefully.

For ^hshe said, ‘I will go after my lovers,

who ⁱgive me my bread and my water,

my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

⁶Therefore ^jI will hedge up her⁴ way with thorns,

and ^kI will build a wall against her,

so that she cannot find her paths.

⁷She shall pursue her lovers

but not overtake them,

and she shall seek them

but shall not find them.

^lThen she shall say,

‘I will go and return to ^mmy first husband,

^lfor it was better for me then than now.’

⁸And ⁿshe did not know

that it was ^oI who gave her

^pthe grain, the wine, and the oil,

and who lavished on ^qher silver and gold,

^rwhich they used for Baal.

⁹Therefore ^sI will take back

my grain in its time,

and my wine in its season,

and ^sI will take away my wool and my flax,

which were to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰Now ^tI will uncover her lewdness

in the sight of her lovers,

and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.

^11uAnd I will put an end to all her mirth,

her feasts, her ^vnew moons, her ^vSabbaths,

and all her ^wappointed feasts.

¹²And ^xI will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,

^yof which she said,

‘These are ^zmy wages,

which my lovers have given me.’

I will make them a forest,

^aand the beasts of the field shall devour them.

¹³And ^bI will punish her for ^cthe feast days of the Baals

when she burned offerings to them

and ^dadorned herself with her ring and jewelry,

and went after her lovers

and forgot me, declares the Lord.

The Lord’s Mercy on Israel

¹⁴“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,

and ^ebring her into the wilderness,

and ^fspeak tenderly to her.

¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards

and make the Valley of Achor⁵ a door of hope.

And there she shall answer ^gas in the days of her youth,

as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶“And ^hin that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ ¹⁷For ⁱI will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. ¹⁸And ^jI will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And ^kI will abolish⁶ the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in ^lsafety. ¹⁹And I will betroth you to me ^mforever. ⁿI will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. ²⁰ⁿI will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And ^oyou shall know the Lord.

²¹“And ^pin that day ^qI will answer, declares the Lord,

I will answer the heavens,

and they shall answer the earth,

²²and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,

and they shall answer ^rJezreel,⁷

²³and ^sI will sow her for myself in the land.

And ^tI ^uwill have mercy on No Mercy,⁸

and ^vI will say to Not My People,^{9 w}‘You are my people’;

and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’ ”