Hosea 2:2-13

English Standard Version

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