Hosea 2

English Standard Version

Israel's Unfaithfulness Punished

2 ^[a] Say to your brothers, ^(A)“You are my people,”^[b] and to your sisters, ^(B)“You have received mercy.”^[c]

²“Plead with your mother, plead—
    for ^(C)she is not my wife,
    and I am not her husband—
that she put away ^(D)her whoring from her face,
    and her adultery from between her breasts;
³lest ^(E)I strip her naked
    and make her as ^(F)in the day she was born,
and ^(G)make her like a wilderness,
    and make her like a parched land,
    and kill her with thirst.
⁴^(H)Upon her children also I will have no mercy,
    ^(I)because they are children of whoredom.
⁵For ^(J)their mother has played the whore;
    she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For ^(K)she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
    who ^(L)give me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
⁶Therefore ^(M)I will hedge up her^[d] way with thorns,
    and ^(N)I will build a wall against her,
    so that she cannot find her paths.
⁷She shall pursue her lovers
    but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
    but shall not find them.
^(O)Then she shall say,
    ‘I will go and return to ^(P)my first husband,
    ^(Q)for it was better for me then than now.’
⁸And ^(R)she did not know
    that it was ^(S)I who gave her
    ^(T)the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on ^(U)her silver and gold,
    ^(V)which they used for Baal.
⁹Therefore ^(W)I will take back
    my grain in its time,
    and my wine in its season,
and ^(X)I will take away my wool and my flax,
    which were to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰Now ^(Y)I will uncover her lewdness
    in the sight of her lovers,
    and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
¹¹^(Z)And I will put an end to all her mirth,
    her feasts, her ^(AA)new moons, her ^(AB)Sabbaths,
    and all her ^(AC)appointed feasts.
¹²And ^(AD)I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
    ^(AE)of which she said,
‘These are ^(AF)my wages,
    which my lovers have given me.’
I will make them a forest,
    ^(AG)and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
¹³And ^(AH)I will punish her for ^(AI)the feast days of the Baals
    when she burned offerings to them
and ^(AJ)adorned herself with her ring and jewelry,
    and went after her lovers
    and forgot me, declares the Lord.

The Lord's Mercy on Israel

¹⁴“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
    and ^(AK)bring her into the wilderness,
    and ^(AL)speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards
    and make the Valley of Achor^[e] a door of hope.
And there she shall answer ^(AM)as in the days of her youth,
    as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶“And ^(AN)in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ ¹⁷For ^(AO)I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. ¹⁸And ^(AP)I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And ^(AQ)I will abolish^[f] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in ^(AR)safety. ¹⁹And I will betroth you to me ^(AS)forever. ^(AT)I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. ²⁰^(AU)I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And ^(AV)you shall know the Lord.

²¹“And ^(AW)in that day ^(AX)I will answer, declares the Lord,
    I will answer the heavens,
    and they shall answer the earth,
²²and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
    and they shall answer ^(AY)Jezreel,^[g]
²³    and ^(AZ)I will sow her for myself in the land.
And ^(BA)I ^(BB)will have mercy on No Mercy,^[h]
    and ^(BC)I will say to Not My People,^[i] ^(BD)‘You are my people’;
    and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”