Hosea 2

Tree of Life Version

2 “Yet the number of Bnei-Yisrael will be like the sand of the sea,
    which cannot be measured or counted.^[a]
Instead of ‘You are not My people’ being said to them,
they will be called ‘Children of the living God.’
² Then the descendants of Judah and descendants of Israel will be gathered together.
They will appoint themselves one head
    And they will go up from the land.
For the day of Jezreel will be great.
³ Say you to your brothers, ‘Ammi’^[b]
and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah’^[c].
⁴ Contend with your mother, contend!
For she is not My wife nor I her husband.
Let her put away her fornications from her face
and her adulteries from between her breasts.
⁵ Or else I will strip her naked
and expose her as on the day she was born.
Then I will make her like a wilderness.
Yes, I will make her like desert land,
and I will let her die of thirst.
⁶ I will have no compassion for her children,
for they are children of prostitution.
⁷ For their mother has practiced prostitution.
She who conceived them has been shameful.
For she said, ‘Let me go after my lovers,
    who are giving me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
⁸ Therefore see, I will hedge her in with thorns,
and I will build a wall around her
so she cannot find her paths.
⁹ Then she will chase after her lovers,
but she will not overtake them.
She will seek them, but not find.
Then she will say:
‘Let me go and return to my first husband,
for was it better for me then, than now.’
¹⁰ But she did not realize that I Myself
gave her the grain, the wine and the fresh oil.
I lavished on her silver, also gold—
    which they made into Baal.
¹¹ Therefore I will return
    and take back My grain in its season,
and My new wine at its appointed time,
and I will snatch away My wool and My linen
    for covering her nakedness.
¹² So now I will uncover her lewdness
    to the eyes of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from My hand.
¹³ I will also put an end to all her rejoicing—
    her feasts, her New Moon,
    her Shabbat, and all her moadim.
¹⁴ I will also devastate her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said: ‘These are my payment
    that my lovers have given to me.’
But I will turn them into a thicket
and beasts of the field will devour them.
¹⁵ Then I will punish her for the days of the Baalim^[d]
to whom she would burn incense—
adorning herself with her rings and jewelry,
going after her lovers—
    but Me she forgot.”
It is a declaration of Adonai.

¹⁶ “So then, I Myself will entice her,
I will bring her into the wilderness
    and speak to her heart.
¹⁷ I will give her back her vineyards from there
and make the valley of Achor a door of hope.
She will respond there—
    as in the days of her youth,
    as in the day she came up out of the land of Egypt.
¹⁸ In that day—it is a declaration of Adonai—
you will proclaim, ‘My husband,’
and never again call Me, ‘My Baal.’
¹⁹ Then I will remove the names of the Baalim out of her mouth,
no longer to be mentioned by their name.
²⁰ In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the flying creatures in the sky,
    and the creeping things on the ground.
I will break into pieces the bow and sword
    and warfare from the land,
and I will cause them to lie down securely.
²¹ Then I will betroth you to Me forever—
yes, I will betroth you to Me with righteousness,
    justice, covenant loyalty and compassion.
²² I will betroth you to Me with faithfulness,
and you will know Adonai.
²³ So it will be in that day, I will respond
—it is a declaration of Adonai—
I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth,
²⁴ and the earth will respond
        with grain, new wine, and fresh oil—
and they will respond with ‘Jezreel!’^[e]
25 I will sow her in the land for Myself.
I will have compassion on Lo-ruhamah.
I will say to Lo-ammi, ‘You are My people!’^[f]
and they will say, ‘My God!’”