Hosea 2-5

Complete Jewish Bible

2 ^(1:10)“Nevertheless, the people of Isra’el will number as many as the grains of sand by the sea, which cannot be measured or counted; so that the time will come when, instead of being told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said to them, ‘You are the children of the living God.’ ²^(1:11)Then the people of Y’hudah and the people of Isra’el will be gathered together; they will appoint for themselves one leader; and they will go up out of the land; for that will be a great day, [the day] of Yizre‘el.

³⁽¹⁾“Say to your brothers, ‘Ammi [My People]!’
and to your sisters, ‘Ruchamah [Pitied]!’
⁴⁽²⁾Rebuke your mother, rebuke her;
for she isn’t my wife, and I’m not her husband.
She must remove her whoring from her face,
and her adulteries from between her breasts.
⁵⁽³⁾Otherwise, I will strip her naked
and place her as she was the day she was born,
make her like a desert, place her like a dry land
and kill her with thirst.
⁶⁽⁴⁾I will have no pity on her children,
for they are children of whoring —
⁷⁽⁵⁾their mother prostituted herself,
she who conceived them behaved shamelessly;
she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers,
who give me my food and water,
wool, flax, olive oil and wine.’
⁸⁽⁶⁾Therefore, I will block her way with thorns
and put up a hedge so she can’t find her paths.
⁹⁽⁷⁾She will pursue her lovers but not catch them.
She will seek them but won’t find them.
Then she will say, ‘I will go
and return to my first husband;
because things were better for me then
than they are now.’
¹⁰⁽⁸⁾For she doesn’t know it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine and the oil;
I who increased her silver and gold,
which they used for Ba‘al.
¹¹⁽⁹⁾So I will take back my grain at harvest-time
and my wine in its season;
I will snatch away my wool and flax,
given to cover her naked body.
¹²⁽¹⁰⁾Now I will uncover her shame,
while her lovers watch;
and no one will save her from me.
¹³⁽¹¹⁾I will end her happiness,
her festivals, Rosh-Hodesh, and shabbats,
and all her designated times.
¹⁴⁽¹²⁾I will ravage her vines and fig trees,
of which she says, ‘These are my wages
that my lovers have given me.’
But I will turn them into a forest,
and wild animals will eat them.
¹⁵⁽¹³⁾I will punish her for offering incense
on the feast days of the ba‘alim,
when she decked herself with her earrings and jewels,
pursuing her lovers and forgetting me,” says Adonai.
¹⁶⁽¹⁴⁾“But now I am going to woo her —
I will bring her out to the desert
and I will speak to her heart.
¹⁷⁽¹⁵⁾I will give her her vineyards from there
and the Akhor Valley as a gateway to hope.
She will respond there as she did when young,
as she did when she came up from Egypt.

¹⁸⁽¹⁶⁾“On that day,” says Adonai
“you will call me Ishi [My Husband];
you will no longer call me Ba‘ali [My Master].
¹⁹⁽¹⁷⁾For I will remove the names
of the ba‘alim from her mouth;
they will never again be mentioned by name.
²⁰⁽¹⁸⁾When that day comes, I will make
a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds in the air
and the creeping things of the earth.
I will break bow and sword,
sweep battle from the land,
and make them lie down securely.
²¹⁽¹⁹⁾I will betroth you to me forever;
yes, I will betroth you to me
in righteousness, in justice,
in grace and in compassion;
²²⁽²⁰⁾I will betroth you to me in faithfulness,
and you will know Adonai.
²³⁽²¹⁾When that day comes,
I will answer,” says Adonai
“I will answer the sky,
and it will answer the earth;
²⁴⁽²²⁾the earth will answer the corn, wine and oil,
and they will answer Yizre‘el [God will sow].
²⁵⁽²³⁾I will sow her for me in the land.
I will have pity on Lo-Ruchamah [Unpitied];
I will say to Lo-‘Ammi [Not-My-People], ‘You are my people’;
and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”

3 Adonai said to me, “Go once more, and show love to [this] wife [of yours] who has been loved by her boyfriend, to this adulteress — just as Adonai loves the people of Isra’el, even though they turn to other gods and love the raisin cakes [offered to them].”

²So I bought her back for myself with fifteen pieces of silver and eight bushels of barley . ³Then I told her, “You are to remain in seclusion for a long time and be mine. You are not to be a prostitute, and you are not to be with any other man; and I won’t come in to have sex with you either.” ⁴For the people of Isra’el are going to be in seclusion for a long time without a king, prince, sacrifice, standing-stone, ritual vest or household gods. ⁵Afterwards, the people of Isra’el will repent and seek Adonai their God and David their king; they will come trembling to Adonai and his goodness in the acharit-hayamim.

4 Hear the word of Adonai,
people of Isra’el!
For Adonai has a grievance
against the inhabitants of the land:
there is no truth, no faithful love
or knowledge of God in the land;
²only swearing and lying, killing and stealing
and committing adultery!
They break all bounds, with one blood crime
following another.
³Therefore the land mourns,
and everyone living there languishes,
wild animals too, and the birds in the air;
even the fish in the sea are removed.
⁴But no one should quarrel or rebuke,
because your people are having to quarrel with the cohen.
⁵Therefore you will stumble by day,
and the prophet will stumble with you at night.

“I will destroy your mother.
⁶My people are destroyed for want of knowledge.
Because you rejected knowledge,
I will also reject you as cohen for me.
Because you forgot the Torah of your God,
I will also forget your children.
⁷The more they increased in number,
the more they sinned against me.
I will change their glory into shame.
⁸They feed on the sin of my people
and are greedy for their crimes.
⁹But the cohen will fare
no better than the people;
I will punish him for his ways
and pay him back for his deeds.
¹⁰They will eat but not have enough
and consort with whores but have no children,
because they stopped listening to Adonai.
¹¹Whoring and wine, both old and new,
take away my people’s wits.
¹²My people consult their piece of wood,
their diviner’s wand speaks to them;
for the spirit of whoring makes them err,
they go off whoring, deserting their God.
¹³They sacrifice on the mountain peaks
and offer incense on the hills
under oaks, poplars and pistachio trees;
because they give good shade.
Therefore your daughters behave like whores,
And your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
¹⁴I won’t punish your daughters when they act like whores,
or your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery;
because the men are themselves going off with whores
and sacrificing with prostitutes.
Yes, a people without understanding
will come to ruin.”

¹⁵If you, Isra’el, prostitute yourself,
still Y’hudah has no need to incur such guilt.
Don’t go to Gilgal or up to Beit-Aven,
and don’t swear, “As Adonai lives.”
¹⁶For Isra’el is stubborn as a stubborn cow;
will Adonai now feed them like a lamb in a big pasture?
¹⁷Efrayim is joined to idols;
let him alone!
¹⁸When they finish carousing, they start their whoring;
their rulers deeply love dishonor.
¹⁹The wind will carry them off in its wings
and their sacrifices bring them nothing but shame.

5 “Hear this, cohanim!
Pay attention, house of Isra’el!
Listen, house of the king!
For judgment is coming to you.
You have become a snare for Mitzpah
and a net spread on Tavor.
²The rebels have deepened their slaughter,
and I am rejected by all of them.

³“I know Efrayim;
Isra’el is not hidden from me;
for now, Efrayim, you are a whore;
Isra’el is defiled.”

⁴Their deeds will not allow them
to return to their God,
for the spirit of whoring is in them,
and they don’t know Adonai.
⁵Isra’el’s arrogance will testify in his face;
Isra’el and Efrayim will stumble in their crimes;
Y’hudah too will stumble with them.
⁶With their flocks and herds
they will go in search of Adonai.
But they won’t find him;
he has withdrawn from them.
⁷They have betrayed Adonai,
by fathering foreign children.
Now within the month the invaders
will devour their lands.

⁸“Blow the shofar in Giv‘ah,
a trumpet at Ramah;
sound an alarm at Beit-Aven:
‘Behind you, Binyamin!’
⁹Efrayim will be laid waste
when the day for punishment comes;
I am announcing to the tribes of Isra’el
what will surely happen.
¹⁰The leaders of Y’hudah are like men
who move boundary stones;
I will pour my fury out
upon them like water.
¹¹Efrayim is oppressed, crushed by the judgment,
because he deliberately sought out futility.
¹²Therefore I am like a moth to Efrayim
and like rottenness to the house of Y’hudah.
¹³When Efrayim saw his sickness
and Y’hudah his wound,
Efrayim went to Ashur
and sent envoys to a warring king;
but he can’t heal you
or cure your wound.
¹⁴For to Efrayim I will be like a lion,
and like a young lion to the house of Y’hudah —
I will tear them up and go away;
I will carry them off, and no one will rescue.
¹⁵I will go and return to my place,
till they admit their guilt and search for me,
seeking me eagerly in their distress.”

Hebrews 2

Complete Jewish Bible

2 Therefore, we must pay much more careful heed to the things we have heard, so that we will not drift away. ²For if the word God spoke through angels became binding, so that every violation and act of disobedience received its just deserts in full measure, ³then how will we escape if we ignore such a great deliverance? This deliverance, which was first declared by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him; ⁴while God also bore witness to it with various signs, wonders and miracles, and with gifts of the Ruach HaKodesh which he distributed as he chose.

⁵For it was not to angels that God subjected the ‘olam haba — which is what we are talking about. ⁶And there is a place where someone has given this solemn testimony:

“What is mere man, that you concern yourself with him?
or the son of man, that you watch over him with such care?
⁷You made him a little lower than the angels,
you crowned him with glory and honor,
⁸you put everything in subjection under his feet.”^[a]

In subjecting everything to him, he left nothing unsubjected to him. However, at present, we don’t see everything subjected to him — at least, not yet. ⁹But we do see Yeshua — who indeed was made for a little while lower than the angels — now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by God’s grace he might taste death for all humanity. ¹⁰For in bringing many sons to glory, it was only fitting that God, the Creator and Preserver of everything, should bring the Initiator of their deliverance to the goal through sufferings. ¹¹For both Yeshua, who sets people apart for God, and the ones being set apart have a common origin — this is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers ¹²when he says,

“I will proclaim your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”^[b]

¹³Also,

“I will put my trust in him, . . .”^[c]

and then it goes on,

“Here I am, along with the children God has given me.”^[d]

¹⁴Therefore, since the children share a common physical nature as human beings, he became like them and shared that same human nature; so that by his death he might render ineffective the one who had power over death (that is, the Adversary) ¹⁵and thus set free those who had been in bondage all their lives because of their fear of death.

¹⁶Indeed, it is obvious that he does not take hold of angels to help them; on the contrary,

“He takes hold of the seed of Avraham.”^[e]

¹⁷This is why he had to become like his brothers in every respect — so that he might become a merciful and faithful cohen gadol in the service of God, making a kapparah for the sins of the people. ¹⁸For since he himself suffered death when he was put to the test, he is able to help those who are being tested now.