12 I will ruin her vines and her fig-trees,
    which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
    and wild animals will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the days
    she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewellery,
    and went after her lovers,
    but me she forgot,’
declares the Lord.

14 ‘Therefore I am now going to allure her;
    I will lead her into the wilderness
    and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
    and will make the Valley of Achor[a] a door of hope.
There she will respond[b] as in the days of her youth,
    as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

16 ‘In that day,’ declares the Lord,
    ‘you will call me “my husband”;
    you will no longer call me “my master”.[c]
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
    no longer will their names be invoked.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them
    with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
    and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
    I will abolish from the land,
    so that all may lie down in safety.

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Footnotes

  1. Hosea 2:15 Achor means trouble.
  2. Hosea 2:15 Or sing
  3. Hosea 2:16 Hebrew baal