Hosea 2

1Say to your brothers, “My people,” and to your sisters, “Shown compassion.”

2Bring charges against your mother, bring charges! For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove her prostitution from her face and her adultery from between her breasts,

3or I will strip her naked and expose her as on the day she was born. I will make her like a wilderness, turn her into a parched land, and let her die of thirst.

4I will have no compassion on her children, because they are children of prostitution.

5For their mother has been a prostitute; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. She said, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

6Therefore I am going to hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

7She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.”

8She did not acknowledge that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

9Therefore I will take back my grain at harvest time and my new wine in its season, and I will snatch away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.

10Now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand.

11I will put an end to all her celebrations: her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.

12I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, “These are my pay, which my lovers gave me.” I will turn them into a thicket, and the wild animals will devour them.

13I will punish her for the days of the Baals, when she burned incense to them and decked herself with her rings and jewelry and went after her lovers, but forgot me, declares Yahweh.

14Therefore I am going to woo her: I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.

15There I will give her back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as on the day she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16On that day, declares Yahweh, you will call me “My husband,” and you will no longer call me “My Baal.”

17For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.

18On that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.

19I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and compassion.

20I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you will know Yahweh.

21On that day I will answer, declares Yahweh—I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth,

22and the earth will answer the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and they will answer Jezreel.

23I will sow her for myself in the land. I will have compassion on Lo-ruhamah, and I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,” and he will say, “My God.”