Hosea 1-4

Darby Translation

1 The word of Jehovah that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

² The beginning of the word of Jehovah through Hosea. And Jehovah said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms; for the land is entirely given up to whoredom, away from Jehovah.

³ And he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴ And Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jizreel; for yet a little, and I will visit the blood of Jizreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

⁵ And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jizreel.

⁶ And she conceived again, and bore a daughter. And he said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah; for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, so that I should pardon them.

⁷ But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God; and I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by battle, [or] by horses, or by horsemen.

⁸ And she weaned Lo-ruhamah; and she conceived and bore a son;

⁹ and he said, Call his name Lo-ammi; for ye are not my people, and I will not be for you.

¹⁰ Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall come to pass, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, it shall be said unto them, Sons of the living God.

¹¹ And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and shall go up out of the land: for great is the day of Jizreel.

2 Say unto your brethren Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

² Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: and let her put away her whoredoms from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

³ lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her as a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

⁴ And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of whoredoms.

⁵ For their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give [me] my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

⁶ Therefore behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns; and I will fence [her] in with a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

⁷ And she shall pursue after her lovers, and shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, and shall not find them: and she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now.

⁸ And she did not know that I had given her the corn and the new wine and the oil, and had multiplied to her the silver and gold, which they employed for Baal.

⁹ Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my new wine in its season, and will withdraw my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now will I discover her impiety in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹ And I will cause all her mirth to cease: her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths! and all her solemnities.

¹² And I will make desolate her vine and her fig-tree, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards which my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

¹³ And I will visit upon her the days of the Baals, wherein she burned incense to them, and decked herself with her rings and jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith Jehovah.

¹⁴ Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart.

¹⁵ And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ And it shall be in that day, saith Jehovah, [that] thou shalt call me, My husband, and shalt call me no more, Baali;

¹⁷ for I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

¹⁸ And I will make a covenant for them in that day with the beasts of the field, and with the fowl of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will break bow and sword and battle out of the land; and I will make them to lie down safely.

¹⁹ And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; and I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies;

²⁰ and I will betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know Jehovah.

²¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith Jehovah, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

²² and the earth shall hear the corn, and the new wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jizreel.

²³ And I will sow her unto me in the land; and I will have mercy upon Lo-ruhamah; and I will say to Lo-ammi, Thou art my people; and they shall say, My God.

3 And Jehovah said unto me, Go again, love a woman beloved of a friend, and an adulteress, according to the love of Jehovah for the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love raisin-cakes.

² So I bought her to me for fifteen silver [pieces], and for a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley.

³ And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be [another] man's, and I will also be for thee.

⁴ For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without statue, and without ephod and teraphim.

⁵ Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king; and shall turn with fear toward Jehovah and toward his goodness, at the end of the days.

4 Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; for there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.

² Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery,—they break out; and blood toucheth blood.

³ For this shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowl of the heavens, yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

⁴ Yet let no man strive, and let no man reprove; for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.

⁵ And thou shalt stumble by day; and the prophet also shall stumble with thee by night: and I will destroy thy mother.

⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; for thou hast rejected knowledge, and I will reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

⁷ As they were multiplied, so they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame.

⁸ They eat the sin of my people, and their soul longeth for their iniquity.

⁹ And it shall be as the people so the priest; and I will visit their ways upon them, and recompense to them their doings;

¹⁰ and they shall eat, and not have enough; they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: for they have left off taking heed to Jehovah.

¹¹ Fornication, and wine, and new wine take away the heart.

¹² My people ask counsel of their stock, and their staff declareth unto them; for the spirit of whoredoms causeth [them] to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God:

¹³ they sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oak and poplar and terebinth, because the shade thereof is good; therefore your daughters play the harlot and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your daughters-in-law for their committing adultery; for they themselves go aside with harlots, and they sacrifice with prostitutes: and the people that doth not understand shall come to ruin.

¹⁵ Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah trespass; and come ye not unto Gilgal, neither go up to Beth-aven, nor swear [As] Jehovah liveth!

¹⁶ For Israel is refractory as an untractable heifer; now will Jehovah feed them as a lamb in a wide [pasture].

¹⁷ —Ephraim is joined to idols: leave him alone.

¹⁸ Their drink is sour; they give themselves up to whoredom; her great men passionately love [their] shame.

¹⁹ The wind hath wrapped her up in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.