Hosea 2:5–13

Face it: Your mother’s been a whore,

bringing bastard children into the world.

She said, ‘I’m off to see my lovers!

They’ll wine and dine me,

Dress and caress me,

perfume and adorn me!’

But I’ll fix her: I’ll dump her in a field of thistles,

then lose her in a dead-end alley.

She’ll go on the hunt for her lovers

but not bring down a single one.

She’ll look high and low

but won’t find a one. Then she’ll say,

‘I’m going back to my husband, the one I started out with.

That was a better life by far than this one.’

She didn’t know that it was I all along

who wined and dined and adorned her,

That I was the one who dressed her up

in the big-city fashions and jewelry

that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies.

I’m about to bring her up short: No more wining and dining!

Silk lingerie and gowns are a thing of the past.

I’ll expose her genitals to the public.

All her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her.

Party time is over. I’m calling a halt to the whole business,

her wild weekends and unholy holidays.

I’ll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains,

of which she bragged, ‘Whoring paid for all this!’

They will soon be dumping grounds for garbage,

feeding grounds for stray dogs and cats.

I’ll make her pay for her indulgence in promiscuous religion—

all that sensuous Baal worship

And all the promiscuous sex that went with it,

stalking her lovers, dressed to kill,

And not a thought for me.”

God’s Message!