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“O Jezreel,[a] rename your brother and sister. Call your brother Ammi (which means ‘Now you are mine’); name your sister Ruhamah (‘Pitied’), for now God will have mercy upon her!

“Plead with your mother, for she has become another man’s wife—I am no longer her husband. Beg her to stop her harlotry, to quit giving herself to others. If she doesn’t, I will strip her as naked as the day she was born and cause her to waste away and die of thirst as in a land riddled with famine and drought. And I will not give special favors to her children as I would to my own, for they are not my children; they belong to other men.

“For their mother has committed adultery. She did a shameful thing when she said, ‘I’ll run after other men and sell myself to them for food and drinks and clothes.’

“But I will fence her in with briars and thornbushes; I’ll block the road before her to make her lose her way, so that when she runs after her lovers, she will not catch up with them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’

“She doesn’t realize that all she has, has come from me. It was I who gave her all the gold and silver she used in worshiping Baal, her god!

“But now I will take back the wine and ripened corn I constantly supplied, and the clothes I gave her to cover her nakedness—I will no longer give her rich harvests of grain in its season or wine at the time of the grape harvest. 10 Now I will expose her nakedness in public for all her lovers to see, and no one will be able to rescue her from my hand.

11 “I will put an end to all her joys, her parties, holidays, and feasts. 12 I will destroy her vineyards and her orchards—gifts she claims her lovers gave her—and let them grow into a jungle; wild animals will eat their fruit.

13 “For all the incense she burned to Baal her idol and for the times when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out looking for her lovers and deserted me—for all these things I will punish her,” says the Lord.

14 “But I will court her again and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her tenderly there. 15 There I will give back her vineyards to her and transform her Valley of Troubles into a Door of Hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy as in days long ago in her youth after I had freed her from captivity in Egypt.

16 “In that coming day,” says the Lord, “she will call me ‘My Husband’ instead of ‘My Master.’[b] 17 O Israel, I will cause you to forget your idols, and their names will not be spoken anymore.

18 “At that time I will make a treaty between you and the wild animals, birds, and snakes, not to fear each other anymore; and I will destroy all weapons, and all wars will end.

“Then you will lie down in peace and safety, unafraid; 19 and I will bind you to me forever with chains of righteousness and justice and love and mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and love, and you will really know me then as you never have before.

21-22 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will answer the pleading of the sky for clouds, to pour down water on the earth in answer to its cry for rain. Then the earth can answer the parched cry of the grain, the grapes, and the olive trees for moisture and for dew—and the whole grand chorus shall sing together that ‘God sows!’[c] He has given all!

23 “At that time I will sow a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself! I will pity those who are ‘not pitied,’[d] and I will say to those who are ‘not my people,’ ‘Now you are my people’; and they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

Footnotes

  1. Hosea 2:1 Jezreel is implied in the preceding chapter and verse.
  2. Hosea 2:16 “My Husband” instead of “My Master,” literally, “My Baal,” meaning “My Lord,” but this was a tainted word because it applied to idols, so it will no longer be used in reference to the true God.
  3. Hosea 2:21 “God sows,” literally, “Jezreel.”
  4. Hosea 2:23 “not pitied,” see 1:6, 9-10.

The Unfaithful Wife

Say to your brother,[a] “Ammi,”[b]
and to your sister,[c] “Ruhamah.”[d]
Plead with your mother, plead—
    because she is not my wife,
        and I am not her husband.
Let her put away her whoring from before her,[e]
    and her adultery from between her breasts.
Lest I strip her naked
    and expose her like the day when she was born;
I will make her like the desert
    and turn her into parched land;
        I will kill her with thirst.
And I will not have pity on her children,
    because they are children of whoredom.
        Because their mother was unfaithful;[f]
she who conceived them has acted shamefully,
    for she said:
        “I will go after my lovers,
the ones who give me my bread, my water,
    my wool, and my flax,
        my oil, and my drink.”
Therefore, Look!
    I am going to hedge her path[g] with thorns,[h]
        and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall against her,
    and she will not find her paths.
Then she will pursue her lovers,[i]
    but she will not overtake them;
        she will seek them and not find them;
and she will say, “I will go
    and return to my first husband
    because it was better for me then than now.”
But she did not know
    that it was I who gave her
        grain, new wine, and oil,
and who gave her silver in abundance,
    and gold which they made into a Baal.
Therefore I will take again
    my grain in its time,
        and my wine in its season;
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
    which were to cover her nakedness.
10 And now I will uncover her nakedness
    before the eyes of her lovers,
        and no one will rescue her from my hand.
11 And I will put an end to all her mirth,
    her festivals,[j] her new moons,[k] and her Sabbaths,[l]
        and all her appointed festivals;[m]
12 and I will lay waste to her vines[n] and her fig trees,[o]
    of which she said,
        “They are my payment for prostitution,
    which my lovers gave to me.”
I will make them a forest,
    and the wild animals[p] of the field will devour them.
13 I will punish her[q] for the days of the Baals,
    to whom she burns incense,
and she decked herself with her ornamental ring and jewelry,
    and she went after her lovers, and forgot me
        —a declaration of Yahweh.
14 Therefore, Look! I am going to allure her
    and bring her into the desert,
        and I will speak tenderly to her.[r]
15 From there I will give her
    her vineyards,
        and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope.
And there she will respond,
    as in the days of her youth,
    just as in the day of her coming out of
        the land of Egypt.
16 And on that day[s]
    a declaration of Yahweh—
        you will call me, “My husband;”[t]
        you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”[u]
17 I will remove the names
    of the Baals from her mouth,
        and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.
18 I will make a covenant for them on that day,
    with the animals[v] of the field,
    with the birds[w] of the heaven, and
    with the creeping things[x] of the ground;
        the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.
19 And I will take you as my wife forever;
    I will take you as a wife for myself in righteousness and in justice,
        in steadfast love and in mercy.
20 I will take you as my wife[y] in faithfulness,
    and you will know Yahweh.
21 On that day I will answer, declares Yahweh,[z]
    I will answer the heavens,
        and they will answer the earth.
22 And the earth will answer
    the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they will answer Jezreel.[aa]
23     I will sow her for myself in the land;
        I will have pity on Lo-ruhama;[ab]
    I will say to Lo-ammi,[ac]
        “You are my people,”
    and he himself will say, “you are my God.”

Footnotes

  1. Hosea 2:1 Hebrew “brothers”
  2. Hosea 2:1 Ammi means “My people”
  3. Hosea 2:1 Hebrew “sisters”
  4. Hosea 2:1 Ruhamah means “Pitied”
  5. Hosea 2:2 Literally “from her face”
  6. Hosea 2:5 Or “their mother played the whore”
  7. Hosea 2:6 Hebrew “your path”
  8. Hosea 2:6 Literally “with the thorns”
  9. Hosea 2:7 Literally “the ones who love her”
  10. Hosea 2:11 Hebrew “festival”
  11. Hosea 2:11 Hebrew “new moon”
  12. Hosea 2:11 Hebrew “Sabbath”
  13. Hosea 2:11 Hebrew “festival”
  14. Hosea 2:12 Hebrew “vine”
  15. Hosea 2:12 Hebrew “fig tree”
  16. Hosea 2:12 Hebrew “animal”
  17. Hosea 2:13 Literally “To visit sins upon her;” see 1:4
  18. Hosea 2:14 Literally “I will speak to her heart”
  19. Hosea 2:16 Literally, “And it will happen on that day”
  20. Hosea 2:16 Hebrew “Ishi”
  21. Hosea 2:16 Hebrew “Baali”
  22. Hosea 2:18 Hebrew “animal”
  23. Hosea 2:18 Hebrew “bird”
  24. Hosea 2:18 Hebrew “creeping thing”
  25. Hosea 2:20 Literally “I will take you as a wife to me”
  26. Hosea 2:21 Literally “a declaration of Yahweh
  27. Hosea 2:22 Jezreel means “God sows”
  28. Hosea 2:23 Lo-ruhama means “Not pitied”
  29. Hosea 2:23 Lo-ammi means “Not my people”