Israel Punished and Restored

Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience

50 This is what the Lord says:

⁴⁵ But righteous judges will sentence them to the punishment of women who commit adultery and shed blood,^(A) because they are adulterous and blood is on their hands.^(B)

²⁵ At every street corner^(A) you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty, spreading your legs with increasing promiscuity to anyone who passed by.^(B)

Hosea’s Wife and Children

² When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous^(A) woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness^(B) to the Lord.”

³ and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings^(A) of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster^(B) on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.^(C)

Unfaithful Israel

⁶ During the reign of King Josiah,^(A) the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless^(B) Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree^(C) and has committed adultery^(D) there. ⁷ I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister^(E) Judah saw it.^{(F) 8} I gave faithless Israel^(G) her certificate of divorce^(H) and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear;^(I) she also went out and committed adultery. ⁹ Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land^(J) and committed adultery^(K) with stone^(L) and wood.^(M)