God’s Unfaithful People

2 “Bring 3charges against your mother, 4bring charges;

For ashe is not My wife, nor am I her Husband!

Let her put away her bharlotries from her sight,

And her adulteries from between her breasts;

3 Lest cI strip her naked

And expose her, as in the day she was dborn,

And make her like a wilderness,

And set her like a dry land,

And slay her with ethirst.

4 “I will not have mercy on her children,

For they are the fchildren of harlotry.

5 For their mother has played the harlot;

She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.

For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,

gWho give me my bread and my water,

My wool and my linen,

My oil and my drink.’

6 “Therefore, behold,

hI will hedge up your way with thorns,

And 5wall her in,

So that she cannot find her paths.

7 She will 6chase her lovers,

But not overtake them;

Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.

Then she will say,

i‘I will go and return to my jfirst husband,

For then it was better for me than now.’

8 For she did not kknow

That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,

And multiplied her silver and gold—

Which they prepared for Baal.

9 “Therefore I will return and take away

My grain in its time

And My new wine in its season,

And will take back My wool and My linen,

Given to cover her nakedness.

10 Now lI will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,

And no one shall deliver her from My hand.

11 mI will also cause all her mirth to cease,

Her feast days,

Her New Moons,

Her Sabbaths—

All her appointed feasts.

12 “And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,

Of which she has said,

‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’

So I will make them a forest,

And the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13 I will punish her

For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense.

She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry,

And went after her lovers;

But Me she forgot,” says the Lord.

God’s Mercy on His People

14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,

Will bring her into the wilderness,

And speak 7comfort to her.

15 I will give her her vineyards from there,

And nthe Valley of Achor as a door of hope;

She shall sing there,

As in othe days of her youth,

pAs in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

16 “And it shall be, in that day,”

Says the Lord,

“That you will call Me 8‘My Husband,’

And no longer call Me 9‘My Master,’

17 For qI will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,

And they shall be remembered by their name no more.

18 In that day I will make a rcovenant for them

With the beasts of the field,

With the birds of the air,

And with the creeping things of the ground.

Bow and sword of battle sI will shatter from the earth,

To make them tlie down safely.

19 “I will betroth you to Me forever;

Yes, I will betroth you to Me

In righteousness and justice,

In lovingkindness and mercy;

20 I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,

And uyou shall know the Lord.

21 “It shall come to pass in that day

That vI will answer,” says the Lord;

“I will answer the heavens,

And they shall answer the earth.

22 The earth shall answer

With grain,

With new wine,

And with oil;

They shall answer 1Jezreel.

23 Then wI will sow her for Myself in the earth,

xAnd I will have mercy on her who had 2not obtained mercy;

Then yI will say to those who were 3not My people,

‘You are 4My people!’

And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ”