“I remember you,
The kindness of your ^(A)youth,
The love of your betrothal,
^(B)When you ^[a]went after Me in the wilderness,
In a land not sown.
^3 (C)Israel was holiness to the Lord,
^(D)The firstfruits of His increase.
^(E)All that devour him will offend;
Disaster will ^(F)come upon them,” says the Lord.’ ”

²⁰ “For of old I have ^(A)broken your yoke and burst your bonds;
And ^(B)you said, ‘I will not ^[a]transgress,’
When ^(C)on every high hill and under every green tree
You lay down, ^(D)playing the harlot.
²¹ Yet I had ^(E)planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality.
How then have you turned before Me
Into ^(F)the degenerate plant of an alien vine?
²² For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap,
Yet your iniquity is ^(G)marked^[b] before Me,” says the Lord God.

²³ “How^(H) can you say, ‘I am not ^[c]polluted,
I have not gone after the Baals’?
See your way in the valley;
Know what you have done:
You are a swift dromedary breaking loose in her ways,
²⁴ A wild donkey used to the wilderness,
That sniffs at the wind in her desire;
In her time of mating, who can turn her away?
All those who seek her will not weary themselves;
In her month they will find her.
²⁵ Withhold your foot from being unshod, and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ^(I)‘There is no hope.
No! For I have loved ^(J)aliens, and after them I will go.’

³³ “Why do you beautify your way to seek love?
Therefore you have also taught
The wicked women your ways.

² “Lift up your eyes to ^(E)the desolate heights and see:
Where have you not ^[a]lain with men?
^(F)By the road you have sat for them
Like an Arabian in the wilderness;
^(G)And you have polluted the land
With your harlotries and your wickedness.
³ Therefore the ^(H)showers have been withheld,
And there has been no latter rain.
You have had a ^(I)harlot’s forehead;
You refuse to be ashamed.
⁴ Will you not from this time cry to Me,
‘My Father, You are ^(J)the guide of ^(K)my youth?
^5 (L)Will He remain angry forever?
Will He keep it to the end?’
Behold, you have spoken and done evil things,
As you were able.”

⁴ “I will not have mercy on her children,
For they are the ^(F)children of harlotry.
⁵ For their mother has played the harlot;
She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
^(G)Who give me my bread and my water,
My wool and my linen,
My oil and my drink.’

⁶ “Therefore, behold,
^(H)I will hedge up your way with thorns,
And ^[c]wall her in,
So that she cannot find her paths.
⁷ She will ^[d]chase her lovers,
But not overtake them;
Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.
Then she will say,
^(I)‘I will go and return to my ^(J)first husband,
For then it was better for me than now.’
⁸ For she did not ^(K)know
That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,
And multiplied her silver and gold—
Which they prepared for Baal.

⁹ “Therefore I will return and take away
My grain in its time
And My new wine in its season,
And will take back My wool and My linen,
Given to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰ Now ^(L)I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,
And no one shall deliver her from My hand.
^11 (M)I will also cause all her mirth to cease,
Her feast days,
Her New Moons,
Her Sabbaths—
All her appointed feasts.

¹² “And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,
Of which she has said,
‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’
So I will make them a forest,
And the beasts of the field shall eat them.
¹³ I will punish her
For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense.
She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry,
And went after her lovers;
But Me she forgot,” says the Lord.