Hosea 1 - Joel 4

Tree of Life Version

“Name her Lo-ruhamah^[b]—
    for no longer will I have compassion on the house of Israel
    that I should ever pardon them.
⁷ But on the house of Judah I will have compassion
    and deliver them by Adonai, their God,
    yet not by bow, sword or battle,
        nor by horses and horsemen.”

“Name him Lo-ammi^[c],
    for you are not My people
    and I am not yours.”^[d]

2 “Yet the number of Bnei-Yisrael will be like the sand of the sea,
    which cannot be measured or counted.^[e]
Instead of ‘You are not My people’ being said to them,
they will be called ‘Children of the living God.’
² Then the descendants of Judah and descendants of Israel will be gathered together.
They will appoint themselves one head
    And they will go up from the land.
For the day of Jezreel will be great.
³ Say you to your brothers, ‘Ammi’^[f]
and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah’^[g].
⁴ Contend with your mother, contend!
For she is not My wife nor I her husband.
Let her put away her fornications from her face
and her adulteries from between her breasts.
⁵ Or else I will strip her naked
and expose her as on the day she was born.
Then I will make her like a wilderness.
Yes, I will make her like desert land,
and I will let her die of thirst.
⁶ I will have no compassion for her children,
for they are children of prostitution.
⁷ For their mother has practiced prostitution.
She who conceived them has been shameful.
For she said, ‘Let me go after my lovers,
    who are giving me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
⁸ Therefore see, I will hedge her in with thorns,
and I will build a wall around her
so she cannot find her paths.
⁹ Then she will chase after her lovers,
but she will not overtake them.
She will seek them, but not find.
Then she will say:
‘Let me go and return to my first husband,
for was it better for me then, than now.’
¹⁰ But she did not realize that I Myself
gave her the grain, the wine and the fresh oil.
I lavished on her silver, also gold—
    which they made into Baal.
¹¹ Therefore I will return
    and take back My grain in its season,
and My new wine at its appointed time,
and I will snatch away My wool and My linen
    for covering her nakedness.
¹² So now I will uncover her lewdness
    to the eyes of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from My hand.
¹³ I will also put an end to all her rejoicing—
    her feasts, her New Moon,
    her Shabbat, and all her moadim.
¹⁴ I will also devastate her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said: ‘These are my payment
    that my lovers have given to me.’
But I will turn them into a thicket
and beasts of the field will devour them.
¹⁵ Then I will punish her for the days of the Baalim^[h]
to whom she would burn incense—
adorning herself with her rings and jewelry,
going after her lovers—
    but Me she forgot.”
It is a declaration of Adonai.

¹⁶ “So then, I Myself will entice her,
I will bring her into the wilderness
    and speak to her heart.
¹⁷ I will give her back her vineyards from there
and make the valley of Achor a door of hope.
She will respond there—
    as in the days of her youth,
    as in the day she came up out of the land of Egypt.
¹⁸ In that day—it is a declaration of Adonai—
you will proclaim, ‘My husband,’
and never again call Me, ‘My Baal.’
¹⁹ Then I will remove the names of the Baalim out of her mouth,
no longer to be mentioned by their name.
²⁰ In that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field, the flying creatures in the sky,
    and the creeping things on the ground.
I will break into pieces the bow and sword
    and warfare from the land,
and I will cause them to lie down securely.
²¹ Then I will betroth you to Me forever—
yes, I will betroth you to Me with righteousness,
    justice, covenant loyalty and compassion.
²² I will betroth you to Me with faithfulness,
and you will know Adonai.
²³ So it will be in that day, I will respond
—it is a declaration of Adonai—
I will respond to the skies,
and they will respond to the earth,
²⁴ and the earth will respond
        with grain, new wine, and fresh oil—
and they will respond with ‘Jezreel!’^[i]
25 I will sow her in the land for Myself.
I will have compassion on Lo-ruhamah.
I will say to Lo-ammi, ‘You are My people!’^[j]
and they will say, ‘My God!’”

4 Hear the word of Adonai, Bnei-Yisrael!
For Adonai has a dispute with the inhabitants of the land,
    because there is no truth,
    no covenant loyalty,
    and no knowledge of God in the land.
² Curse, deceive, murder,
    steal, commit adultery!
They practice violence,
    and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
³ Therefore the land will mourn,
and everyone dwelling in it will languish
along with the beasts of the field and the flying creatures of the sky—
    even the fish of the sea will be removed.
⁴ Yet let no one dispute
    and let no one argue.
Your people are like a kohen
    who makes quarrels.
⁵ So you will stumble by day.
Also a prophet will stumble with you by night,
when I destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Since you rejected knowledge,
    I will also reject you from being My kohen.
Since you forgot the Torah of your God,
    just so I will forget your children.
⁷ The more they multiplied,
the more they sinned against Me.
I will change their glory into disgrace.
⁸ They feed on the sin of My people
and relish their iniquity.
⁹ But it will be like people, like kohen.
So I will punish them for their ways,
and repay them for their deeds.
¹⁰ They have eaten but will not be satisfied.
They have fornicated but will not increase.
For they stopped giving heed to Adonai.
¹¹ Prostitution and wine—even new wine—
it takes away understanding.
¹² My people consult their wooden idol
and their divining rod informs them.
For a spirit of prostitution
    leads them astray
and they have been a prostitute—
    out from under their God.
¹³ They sacrifice on the mountaintops
and on the high places they burn incense
    under oak poplar, and terebinth—
    for its shade is good.
Therefore your daughters are prostitutes
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
¹⁴ Will I not punish your daughters for prostitution
    or your daughters-in-law for adultery?
For they consort with prostitutes,
    and they sacrifice with cult prostitutes.
A people without understanding
    will be thrust down.

5 Hear this, O priests!
Pay attention, O house of Israel!
Give ear, O house of the king!
For the judgment applies to you:
For you were a snare at Mizpah
    and a net spread on Tabor.
² Rebels were deep in slaughter,
so I am a chastisement for them all.
³ I myself have known Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from Me.
For now, Ephraim, you are a prostitute—
    Israel is defiled!
⁴ They will not give up their evil deeds
    to return to their God.
For a spirit of prostitution is in them,
    and Adonai they have not known.
⁵ The Pride of Israel will answer to his face:
Israel and Ephraim will stagger in their iniquity,
Judah also will stumble with them.
⁶ With their flocks and with their herds
they will go to seek Adonai,
but they will not find Him—
He has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have betrayed Adonai,
for they have begotten foreign children.
Now the New Moon will devour them,
    with their portions.

6 Come, let us return to Adonai.
For He has torn, but He will heal us.
He has smitten, but He will bind us up.
² After two days He will revive us.
On the third day He will raise us up,
and we will live in His presence.^[m]
3 So let us know, let us strive to know Adonai.
Like dawn His going forth is certain.
He will come to us like the rain,
    like the latter rain watering the earth.

⁴ “O Ephraim, what shall I do for you?
O Judah, what will I do for you?
For your loyalty is like a morning cloud
    or like dew rising early, vanishing.
⁵ Therefore I cut them down by the prophets.
I slew them by the words of My mouth.
Now the judgments pronounced against you:
    light will go forth.
⁶ For I delight in loyalty^[n] and not sacrifice,
knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
⁷ But like Adam, they transgressed a covenant.
There they dealt treacherously with Me.
⁸ Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with bloody footprints.
⁹ Like marauding bands waiting for a man,
so a company of priests murders
    on the way toward Shechem.
For they have committed crime.
¹⁰ In the house of Israel
I have seen a horrible thing:
Ephraim’s prostitution is there,
Israel has become unclean.
¹¹ Also, Judah, there is a harvest for you,
when I return My people from captivity.”

7 “When I would have healed Israel,
the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered,
    even the wickedness of Samaria,
    for they practice fraud.
So a thief breaks in;
    a marauding band will raid outside.
² But they never admit in their heart
that I remember all their evil.
Now their deeds are all around them.
They are right before My face.
³ They gladden the king with their evil
and the princes with their lies.
⁴ All of them are practicing adultery,
as an oven heated by a baker who stops stirring
    or kneading dough when it is leavened.
⁵ On the day of our king,
princes become sick from wine.
His hand drags scorners along.
⁶ For their hearts are like an oven,
as they wait in ambush.
All night their anger smolders.
In the morning it burns like a blazing fire.
⁷ All of them are hot like an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All of their kings have fallen.
None among them calls on Me.
⁸ Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples.
Ephraim has become a pancake
    that never gets turned over.
⁹ Strangers devoured his strength—
    yet he does not know it.
Gray hairs have spread on him—
    and he does not know it.
¹⁰ Though the Pride of Israel
has answered him to his face,
yet they did not return
    to Adonai their God,
nor seek Him about all this.
¹¹ Ephraim is like a senseless silly dove,
they call to Egypt; they go to Assyria.
¹² As they are going,
I will spread out My net over them,
I will bring them down like a bird from the sky.
I will chasten them as in the report
    that comes to their assembly.
¹³ Oy to them!
    For they strayed from Me.
Devastation to them!
    For they rebelled against Me.
Should I redeem them
    after they spoke lies about Me?
¹⁴ Nor did they not cry to Me in their heart
when they were wailing on their beds.
For the sake of grain and new wine
    they slash themselves—
    they keep turning away from Me.
¹⁵ I trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they kept planning evil against Me.
¹⁶ They will turn back—only not upwards.
They are like a treacherous bow.
Their princes will fall by the sword
    because of the insolence with their tongues.
This will be for their ridicule in the land of Egypt.

8 “Put a shofar to your mouth!
Like a vulture he comes
    against the house of Adonai.
For they overstepped My covenant
    and transgressed My Torah.
² Will they cry out to Me,
‘My God, we—Israel—knew You’?^[o]
3 Israel has rejected goodness—
an adversary will pursue him.
⁴ They crowned kings, but not by Me.
They appointed princes
    I did not approve.
Their silver and gold they made into idols—
    just so they would be cut down.
⁵ Samaria! Your calf is thrown down!
My anger is kindled against them!
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
⁶ For a craftsman from Israel made it,
so it is no god.
For the calf of Samaria will be splinters.

9 Do not rejoice, O Israel,
do not celebrate like the peoples—
for so you have gone whoring away from your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s pay,
    on every grain-threshing-floor.
² Threshing-floor and wine-press will not sustain them,
and new wine will fail her.
³ They will not dwell in Adonai’s land.
Instead Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and eat unclean food in Assyria.
⁴ They will pour no wine-offerings to Adonai—
    they would not be pleasing to Him.
Their sacrifices will be like
    the bread of mourners for them.
All that eat it will be defiled,
    for their bread is for their appetite,
    not coming into the House of Adonai.
⁵ What will you do for a moed
or for the day of Adonai’s feast?

10 A luxuriant vine is Israel,
who produces fruit for himself.
Like the abundance of his fruit
    he has multiplied his altars.
Like the goodness of his land,
    they made beautiful sacred pillars.
² Their heart became smooth^[p].
Now they will bear their guilt.
He will break down their altars.
He will destroy their sacred pillars.
³ Surely now they will say: “We have no king,
    for we have not feared Adonai.
The king—what can he do for us?”
⁴ They spoke words—
empty oaths to make a covenant.
But judgment springs up as hemlock
    in the furrows of the field.
⁵ The inhabitants of Samaria will quarrel
    over the calves of Beth-aven.
Indeed its people will mourn over it,
    but its priests will tremble over it.
For its glory will surely depart from it.
⁶ It also will be carried to Assyria
    as tribute to a warring king.
Ephraim will receive shame
    and Israel will be put to shame by its own counsel.
⁷ Samaria is being cut off.
Her king is like a splinter on the surface of the water.
⁸ The high places of Aven,
the sin of Israel will be destroyed.
Thorns and thistles will come up on their altars.
And they will say to the mountains: “Cover us!”
And to the hills: “Fall on us!”^[q]
9 “From the days of Gibeah,
you have sinned, O Israel.
There they took their stand.
Will not war over sons of iniquity
    overtake them in Gibeah?
¹⁰ When I desire,
I will chasten them,
and peoples will gather against them
when they are yoked to their two sins.
¹¹ Though Ephraim is a trained heifer
    that loves to thresh,
    I put a yoke
    over her fair neck.
I will make Ephraim pull;
    Judah will plow;
    Jacob will drag a harrow by himself.”

¹² Sow for yourselves righteousness.^[r]
Reap in accord with covenant love.
Break up your unplowed ground.
For it is time to seek Adonai,
    until He comes
    and showers righteousness on you.
¹³ You have plowed up wickedness,
you have reaped iniquity.
You have eaten the fruit of delusion,
    for you have trusted in your own way,
    in the multitude of your mighty men.
¹⁴ A tumult will arise among your people.
All your strongholds will be demolished,
as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel in the day of battle,
when a mother was dashed in pieces with her children.
¹⁵ Just so has Bethel done to you
    because of your great wickedness.
At dawn the king of Israel
    will be utterly cut off.

11 “When Israel was a youth I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called My son.^[s]
2 They called out to them
but they departed from their presence.
They kept sacrificing to the Baalim
    and burning incense up to idols.
³ Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.
I took them on My arms.
But they never acknowledged
    that I had healed them.
⁴ With human cords I was drawing them,
with bonds of love,
and I became to them as One lifting a yoke from their jaws.
I bent down to them and fed them.
⁵ He will not return to the land of Egypt,
but the Assyrian will be his king—
because they refused to return.
⁶ So a sword will fall on his cities,
and destroy and devour his gate bars
because of their own counsels.
⁷ So My people are bent on turning from Me.
Although they are being called upwards,
    none will rise up.

12 “Ephraim surrounded Me with lies^[t]
and the house of Israel with deceit.”
Though Judah roams restlessly with God,
yet he is faithful with holy things.^[u]
2 Ephraim is grazing on wind
and pursuing the east wind.
All day he multiplies lies and ruin:
    making^[v] a pact with Assyria,
    while carrying oil to Egypt.
³ Adonai also has a dispute with Judah:
He will punish Jacob for his ways,
    repaying him for his deeds.
⁴ In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,
and in his vigor he strove with God.
⁵ Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won;
he wept and sought his favor.
At Bethel he will find us,
    and there He will speak with us.
⁶ Even Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot—
Adonai is His memorial-Name.
⁷ So you should return to your God,
keep covenant loyalty and justice,
and wait for your God continually.
⁸ A merchant loves to extort,
with deceptive balances in his hand.

13 When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.
He exalted himself in Israel,
but he became guilty through Baal, and died.
² But now, they sin more and more.
They made themselves molten images,
    idols skillfully made from their silver,
    all of them the work of the craftsmen.
They say about them:
    “Let those who sacrifice kiss the calves.”
³ Therefore they will be like morning clouds,
like dew passing away early,
like chaff blown from the threshing-floor,
or like smoke from a chimney.

14 Samaria will bear her guilt,^[y]
for she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword,
    their infants dashed to pieces,
    their pregnant women ripped open.
² Return O Israel, to Adonai your God,
for you have stumbled in your iniquity.
³ Take words with you and return to Adonai.
Say to Him: “Take away all iniquity,
    and accept what is good,
so we may repay with offerings^[z] of our lips:
⁴ ‘Assyria will not save us.
We will not ride on horses,
and we will never again say, “Our god,”
    to the work of our hands,
    for with You, orphans find mercy.’”

² Hear this, elders!
Give ear, all inhabitants of the land.
Has this ever happened in your days,
or even in the days of your fathers?
³ Tell your children about it—
your children to their children,
their children to another generation.
⁴ What the locust left,
    the swarming locust has eaten,
and what the swarming locust left,
    the canker-worm has eaten,
and what the canker-worm left,
    the caterpillar has eaten.
⁵ Awake, drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine—
on account of sweet wine,
for it is denied to your mouth!
⁶ For a nation has invaded my land.
Vast—yes, without number!
Its teeth are lion’s teeth,
    with jaw-teeth of a lioness.^[ab]
7 He has turned my vine to waste
and my fig tree to splinters.
He has stripped off all the bark
    and flung it down—
its branches are left white.
⁸ Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth
for the husband of her youth!
⁹ Grain offering and drink offering
are cut off from the House of Adonai.
Kohanim—ministers of Adonai—mourn.
¹⁰ The field is ruined, the land grieves,
for the grain has been devastated,
new wine is dried up, oil languishes.
¹¹ Be ashamed, O ploughmen;
wail, O vinedressers,
    over wheat and over barley,
for the harvest of the field is lost.
¹² The vine withered, the fig tree wilted.
Pomegranate, palm and apple tree
—all trees of the field—are withered,
for joy has withered away
    from the children of men.
¹³ Gird yourselves and weep, kohanim!
Howl, ministers of the altar!
Come, lie in sackcloth all night,
        ministers of my God.
For grain and drink offering are withheld
    from the House of your God.

¹⁴ Consecrate a fast.
Proclaim a solemn assembly.
Gather elders and all living in the land
to the House of Adonai your God,
    and cry to Adonai.
¹⁵ Ah, the day!
The day of Adonai is near!
As havoc from Shaddai it will come.
¹⁶ Is food not cut off before our eyes—
joy and gladness from God’s House?
¹⁷ Seed has shriveled under the dirt clod.
Storehouses are desolate,
    granaries are torn down,
    for the grain has withered.
¹⁸ How the animals groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed,
    because they have no pasture.
The flocks of sheep also suffer.
¹⁹ To You, Adonai, I cry!
For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness,
and flame has set ablaze all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Also beasts of the field pant toward You.
For the water of wadis are dried up,
and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
2 Blow the shofar in Zion!
Sound an alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all living in the land tremble—
for the day of Adonai is coming—
surely it is near!^[ac]
2 A day of darkness and gloominess,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
as blackness spreads over the mountains.
A great and mighty people—
from antiquity there was never anything like it,
nor after it ever again from generation to generation.^[ad]
3 A fire devours before them
and behind them flame blazes up.
Like the Garden of Eden is the land before them,
    and behind them a desolate wilderness.
Nothing at all ever escapes them.
⁴ Their appearance is like the appearance of horses—
they gallop like war horses.^[ae]
5 Like the clatter of chariots,^[af]
they leap on the tops of mountains,
like crackling flame of fire devouring stubble,
like a mighty horde in battle array.
⁶ Before them peoples are in anguish.
All faces become ashen gray.
⁷ They run like mighty men.
They climb a wall like men of war.
They each march in line,
    never deviating from their ways.
⁸ One does not crowd another.
Each one marches on his own highway.
They plunge through the weapons,
    never breaking off.
⁹ They rush on the city,
they run on the wall,
they climb up into the houses,
    coming through the windows like a thief.
¹⁰ Before them land quakes,
heaven trembles,
sun and moon become dark,
stars withdraw their brightness.^[ag]
11 Adonai utters His voice before His army.
For His camp is very vast—
    for mighty is it that carries out His word.
For great is the day of Adonai—^[ah] very terrifying!
    Who can endure it?

¹² “Yet even now”
—it is a declaration of Adonai—
“turn to Me with all your heart,
with fasting, weeping and lamenting.”
¹³ Rend your heart, not your garments,
and turn to Adonai, your God.
For He is gracious and compassionate,
    slow to anger, abundant in mercy,
    and relenting about the calamity due.
¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent,
and may leave a blessing behind Him
—so there may be a grain offering
and a drink offering for Adonai, your God.

¹⁵ Blow the shofar in Zion!
Sanctify a fast;
proclaim an assembly.
¹⁶ Gather the people;
sanctify the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
    even those nursing at breasts.
Let the bridegroom come out from his bedroom
and the bride from her chamber.
¹⁷ Between the porch and the altar
let the kohanim, ministers of Adonai,
    weep, and let them say:
    “Have pity, Adonai, on Your people.
    Don’t make Your heritage a scorn,
        a byword among the nations.
Why should the peoples say,
    ‘Where is their God?’”^[ai]
18 Adonai will be zealous for His land,
and have compassion on His people.
¹⁹ Adonai will answer and say to His people:
“Behold, I will send you the grain,
    the new wine, and the fresh oil,
    and you will be satisfied with it.
I will no longer make you a mockery among the nations.
²⁰ “But I will remove the northern invader far from you—
    yes, I will banish him to a dry and desolate land—
his vanguard into the Eastern Sea
and his rearguard into the Western Sea.
His odor will go up—
        Yes, his stench will rise.”
    For He^[aj] has done great things!

²¹ Do not fear, O land. Be glad! Rejoice!
For Adonai has done great things.
²² Do not be afraid, beasts of the field,
for the desert pastures have sprouted,
for the tree bears its fruit.
Fig tree and vine yield their strength.
²³ So be glad, children of Zion,
and rejoice in Adonai, your God.
For He gives you the early rain^[ak] for prosperity,
Yes, He will bring down rain for you,
    the early and latter rain as before.
²⁴ The threshing floors will be full of grain
and the vats will overflow with new wine and fresh oil.

3 “So it will be afterward,^[al]
I will pour out My Ruach on all flesh:^[am]
your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
² “Also on the male and the female servants
will I pour out My spirit in those days.^[an]
3 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth—
blood, fire and pillars of smoke.^[ao]
4 The sun will be turned into darkness
and the moon into blood, before the great and awesome day of Adonai comes.
⁵ Then all who call on Adonai’s Name^[ap] will escape,
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be rescue, as Adonai has said,
    among the survivors whom Adonai is calling.”

4 “For behold, in those days and at that time,
    when I restore Judah and Jerusalem from exile,
² I will gather all nations
and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.
I will plead^[aq] with them there on behalf of My people,
    even My inheritance, Israel,
whom they scattered among the nations
    and they divided up My land.
³ They cast lots for My people,
traded a boy for a prostitute,
    and sold a girl for wine, which they drank.”

but Adonai will be a refuge for His people,
    and a safe place for the children of Israel.
¹⁷ So you will know that I am Adonai, your God,
dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain.
Then will Jerusalem be holy,
and foreigners will cross through her no more.
¹⁸ It will be in that day,
the mountains will drip sweet wine,
the hills will flow with milk,
and all the wadis of Judah will flow with water.^[au]
A spring will flow out from the House of Adonai
    and water the valley of Shittim.
¹⁹ Egypt will become a desolation
and Edom a desert wasteland,
because of the violence against the children of Judah,
because they shed innocent blood in their land.
²⁰ But Judah will be inhabited forever—
Jerusalem from generation to generation.
²¹ I will acquit their bloodguilt that I had not acquitted,^[av]
for Adonai dwells in Zion.