to him, ‘Call her name Not pitied, for I will no more have pity on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all.7 But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will deliver them by the Lord their God; I will not deliver them by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by horses, nor by horsemen.’ The first child had been Hosea’s own: his wife ‘bore him a son’ (3). The second and third are not said to have been his: the ‘him’ of verse 3 is missing in verses 6 and 8. So the joy of fatherhood was deeply
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