Historical
Chapter 1
1 [a]The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel.[b]
I. The Prophet’s Marriage and Its Symbolism
Marriage of Hosea and Gomer. 2 When the Lord began to speak with Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: Go, get for yourself a woman of prostitution[c] and children of prostitution, for the land prostitutes itself,(A) turning away from the Lord.
3 So he went and took Gomer, daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 Then the Lord said to him: Give him the name “Jezreel,”[d] for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed at Jezreel and bring to an end the kingdom of the house of Israel; 5 on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. The Lord said to him: Give her the name “Not-Pitied,”[e] for I will no longer feel pity for the house of Israel: rather, I will utterly abhor them. 7 [f]Yet for the house of Judah I will feel pity; I will save them by the Lord, their God; but I will not save them by bow or sword, by warfare, by horses or horsemen.(B)
8 After she weaned Not-Pitied, she conceived and bore a son. 9 Then the Lord said: Give him the name “Not-My-People,”[g] for you are not my people, and I am not “I am” for you.
Chapter 2
1 [h]The number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
which can be neither measured nor counted.(C)
Instead of being told,
“You are Not-My-People,”
They will be called,
“Children of the living God.”(D)
2 Then the people of Judah and of Israel
will gather together;
They will appoint for themselves one head
and rise up from the land;
great indeed shall be the day of Jezreel!
3 Say to your brothers, “My People,”
and to your sisters, “Pitied.”
The Lord and Israel His Spouse[i]
4 Accuse your mother, accuse!
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.[j]
Let her remove her prostitution from her face.
her adultery from between her breasts,
5 Or I will strip her naked,[k]
leaving her as on the day of her birth;
I will make her like the wilderness,
make her like an arid land,
and let her die of thirst.
6 I will have no pity on her children,
for they are children of prostitution.
7 Yes, their mother has prostituted herself;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers,[l]
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”(E)
8 [m]Therefore, I will hedge in her way with thorns
and erect a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
9 If she runs after her lovers, she will not overtake them;
if she seeks them she will not find them.
Then she will say,
“I will go back to my first husband,
for I was better off then than now.”(F)
10 She did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
I who lavished upon her silver,
and gold, which they used for Baal,[n]
11 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season;
I will snatch away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
12 Now I will lay bare her shame
in full view of her lovers,(G)
and no one can deliver her out of my hand.(H)
13 I will put an end to all her joy,
her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths—
all her seasonal feasts.
14 I will lay waste her vines and fig trees,
of which she said, “These are the fees
my lovers have given me”;
I will turn them into rank growth
and wild animals shall devour them.
15 I will punish her for the days of the Baals,[o]
for whom she burnt incense,
When she decked herself out with her rings and her jewelry,
and went after her lovers—
but me she forgot—oracle of the Lord.(I)
16 Therefore,[p] I will allure her now;
I will lead her into the wilderness(J)
and speak persuasively to her.
17 Then I will give her the vineyards she had,
and the valley of Achor[q] as a door of hope.(K)
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as on the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
18 On that day—oracle of the Lord—
You shall call me “My husband,”
and you shall never again call me “My baal.”[r]
19 I will remove from her mouth the names of the Baals;
they shall no longer be mentioned by their name.
20 I will make a covenant for them on that day,(L)
with the wild animals,
With the birds of the air,
and with the things that crawl on the ground.
Bow and sword and warfare
I will destroy from the land,
and I will give them rest in safety.
21 I will betroth you to me forever:
I will betroth you to me with[s] justice and with judgment,
with loyalty and with compassion;
22 I will betroth you to me with fidelity,
and you shall know the Lord.
23 On that day I will respond—oracle of the Lord—
I will respond to the heavens,
and they will respond to the earth;
24 The earth will respond to the grain, and wine, and oil,
and these will respond to Jezreel.
25 I will sow her for myself in the land,
and I will have pity on Not-Pitied.
I will say to Not-My-People, “You are my people,”(M)
and he will say, “My God!”
Chapter 3
Hosea and His Wife Reunited[t] 1 Again the Lord said to me:
Go, love a woman
who is loved by her spouse but commits adultery;
Just as the Lord loves the Israelites,
though they turn to other gods
and love raisin cakes.[u]
2 [v]So I acquired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. 3 Then I said to her:
“You will wait for me for many days;
you will not prostitute yourself
Or belong to any man;
I in turn will wait for you.”
4 [w]For the Israelites will remain many days
without king or prince,
Without sacrifice or sacred pillar,
without ephod or household gods.
5 Afterward the Israelites will turn back
and seek the Lord, their God,
and David, their king;[x](N)
They will come trembling to the Lord
and to his bounty, in the last days.
II. Israel’s Guilt, Punishment, and Restoration
Chapter 4
Indictment of Israel[y]
1 Hear the word of the Lord, Israelites,
for the Lord has a dispute
with the inhabitants of the land:(O)
There is no fidelity, no loyalty,
no knowledge of God in the land.
2 Swearing, lying, murder,
stealing and adultery break out;[z]
bloodshed follows bloodshed.(P)
3 Therefore the land dries up,
and everything that dwells in it languishes:
The beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and even the fish of the sea perish.(Q)
Guilt of Priest and of People
4 But let no one accuse, let no one rebuke;
with you is my dispute, priest![aa]
5 You will stumble in the day,
and the prophet will stumble with you at night;
I will make an end of your mother.[ab]
6 My people are ruined for lack of knowledge!
Since you have rejected knowledge,
I will reject you from serving as my priest;
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your children.
7 The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against me,
I will change their glory[ac] into shame.(R)
8 They feed on the sin of my people,
and are greedy for their iniquity.[ad]
9 Like people, like priest:(S)
I will punish them for their ways,
and repay them for their deeds.
10 They will eat but not be satisfied,(T)
they will promote prostitution[ae] but not increase,
Because they have abandoned the Lord,
devoting themselves
11 to prostitution.
Aged wine and new wine
take away understanding.(U)
12 My people consult their piece of wood,[af]
and their wand makes pronouncements for them,
For the spirit of prostitution has led them astray;
they prostitute themselves, forsaking their God.
13 On the mountaintops they offer sacrifice
and on the hills they burn incense,
Beneath oak and poplar and terebinth,
because of their pleasant shade.[ag]
Therefore your daughters prostitute themselves,
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
14 I will not punish your daughters for their prostitution,
nor your daughters-in-law for their adultery,
Because the men themselves consort with prostitutes,
and with temple women[ah] they offer sacrifice!
Thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.
15 Though you prostitute yourself, Israel,
do not let Judah become guilty!
Do not come to Gilgal,[ai]
do not go up to Beth-aven,(V)
do not swear, “As the Lord lives!”(W)
16 For like a stubborn cow,
Israel is stubborn;
Will the Lord now pasture them,
like lambs in a broad meadow?
17 Ephraim[aj] is bound to idols,
let him alone!
18 [ak]When their drinking is over,
they give themselves to prostitution;(X)
they love shame more than their honor.
19 A wind[al] has bound them up in its wings;(Y)
they shall be ashamed because of their altars.(Z)
Chapter 5
Guilt of the Religious and Political Leaders
1 Hear this, priests,
Pay attention, house of Israel,
Household of the king, give ear!(AA)
For you are responsible for judgment.[am]
But you have been a snare at Mizpah,[an]
a net spread upon Tabor,
2 a pit dug deep in Shittim.
Now I will discipline them all.
3 I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me:
Now, Ephraim, you have practiced prostitution,
Israel is defiled.
4 Their deeds do not allow them
to return to their God;(AB)
For the spirit of prostitution is in them,
and they do not know the Lord.
5 The arrogance of Israel bears witness against him;
Israel and Ephraim stumble because of their iniquity,
and Judah stumbles with them.
6 With their flocks and herds they will go
to seek the Lord, but will not find him;(AC)
he has withdrawn from them.
7 They have betrayed the Lord,
for they have borne illegitimate children;
Now the new moon[ao] will devour them
together with their fields.
Political Upheavals[ap]
8 Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah!
Sound the alarm in Beth-aven:(AD)
“Look behind you, Benjamin!”[aq]
9 Ephraim shall become a wasteland
on the day of punishment:
Among the tribes of Israel
I announce what is sure to be.
10 The princes of Judah have become
like those who move a boundary line;[ar](AE)
Upon them I will pour out
my wrath like water.
11 Ephraim is oppressed, crushed by judgment,
for he has willingly gone after filth![as]
12 I am like a moth for Ephraim,(AF)
like rot for the house of Judah.
13 When Ephraim saw his infirmity,
and Judah his sore,
Ephraim went to Assyria,
and sent to the great king.[at](AG)
But he cannot heal you,
nor take away your sore.
14 For I am like a lion to Ephraim,
like a young lion to the house of Judah;(AH)
It is I who tear the prey and depart,
I carry it away and no one can save it.(AI)
Insincere Conversion
15 I will go back to my place
until they make reparation
and seek my presence.
In their affliction, they shall look for me.(AJ)
Chapter 6
1 “Come, let us return to the Lord,(AK)
For it is he who has torn, but he will heal us;
he has struck down, but he will bind our wounds.
2 He will revive us after two days;
on the third day[au] he will raise us up,(AL)
to live in his presence.
3 Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord;
as certain as the dawn is his coming.
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth.”(AM)
4 What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your loyalty is like morning mist,
like the dew that disappears early.
5 For this reason I struck them down through the prophets,
I killed them by the words of my mouth;[av](AN)
my judgment shines forth like the light.
6 For it is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.(AO)
Further Crimes of Israel
7 But they, at Adam,[aw] violated the covenant;
there they betrayed me.
8 Gilead[ax] is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
9 Like brigands lying in wait
is the band of priests.
They murder on the road to Shechem,[ay]
indeed they commit a monstrous crime.
10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing:
there is found Ephraim’s prostitution,
Israel is defiled.
11 For you also, Judah,
a harvest[az] has been appointed!
Chapter 7
When I would have restored the fortunes of my people,
1 when I would have healed Israel,
The guilt of Ephraim was revealed,
the wickedness of Samaria:
They practiced falsehood.
Thieves break in,
bandits roam outside.
2 Yet they do not call to mind
that I remember all their wickedness.(AP)
Now their crimes surround them,
present to my sight.(AQ)
Israel’s Domestic Politics[ba]
3 With their wickedness they make the king rejoice,
the princes too, with their treacherous deeds.
4 They are all adulterers,[bb]
like a blazing oven,
Which the baker quits stoking,
after the dough’s kneading until its rising.
5 On the day of our king,
they made the princes sick with poisoned wine;
he extended his hand to the scoffers.
6 For they draw near in ambush
with their hearts like an oven.
All the night their anger sleeps;
in the morning it flares like a blazing fire.
7 They are all heated like ovens,
and consume their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
none of them calls upon me.
Israel’s Foreign Politics
8 Ephraim is mixed with the nations,[bc]
Ephraim is an unturned cake.
9 Strangers have consumed his strength,
but he does not know it;(AR)
Gray hairs are strewn on his head,
but he takes no notice of it.
10 The arrogance of Israel bears witness against him;
yet they do not return to the Lord, their God,
nor seek him, despite all this.(AS)
11 Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and senseless;
They call upon Egypt,
they go to Assyria.
12 When they go I will spread my net around them,
like birds in the air I will bring them down.(AT)
I will chastise them when I hear of their assembly.
13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Ruin to them, for they have rebelled against me!
Though I wished to redeem them,
they spoke lies against me.
14 They have not cried to me from their hearts
when they wailed upon their beds;
For wheat and wine they lacerated themselves;[bd]
they rebelled against me.
15 Though I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they devised evil against me.
16 They have again become useless,
they have been like a treacherous bow.(AU)
Their princes shall fall by the sword
because of the insolence of their tongues;
thus they shall be mocked in the land of Egypt.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.