aSay ye unto your brethren, ||Ammi;

And to your sisters, ||Ru-hamah.

2  Plead with your mother, plead:

For bshe is not my wife, neither am I her husband:

Let her therefore put away cher whoredoms out of her sight,

And her adulteries dfrom between her breasts;

3  Lest eI strip her naked, and set her as fin the day that she was born,

And make her gas a wilderness, and set her glike a dry land,

And slay her ghwith thirst.

4  And iI will not have mercy upon her children;

For they be the kchildren of whoredoms.

5  For their mother lhath played the harlot:

mShe that conceived them hath done shamefully:

For she said, nI will go after my lovers,

oThat give me my bread and my water,

pMy wool and my flax, mine oil and my †drink.

6  Therefore, behold, qI will rhedge up thy way with thorns,

And †smake a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

7  And she shall follow after nher lovers, but she shall not overtake them;

And she shall seek them, but shall not find them:

Then shall she say, tI will go and return to my ufirst husband;

tFor then was it better with me than now.

8  For vshe did not know wthat I gave her xcorn, and †xwine, and xoil,

And multiplied her silver and gold,

||Which they prepared for Baal.