Hosea’s Reconciliation With His Wife

3 The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress.^(A) Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.^(B)”

² So I bought her for fifteen shekels^[a] of silver and about a homer and a lethek^[b] of barley. ³ Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

⁴ For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince,^(C) without sacrifice^(D) or sacred stones,^(E) without ephod^(F) or household gods.^{(G) 5} Afterward the Israelites will return and seek^(H) the Lord their God and David their king.^(I) They will come trembling^(J) to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.^(K)

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a](A) of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy^(B) and can fathom all mysteries^(C) and all knowledge,^(D) and if I have a faith^(E) that can move mountains,^(F) but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor^(G) and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b](H) but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient,^(I) love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.^{(J) 5} It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,^(K) it is not easily angered,^(L) it keeps no record of wrongs.^{(M) 6} Love does not delight in evil^(N) but rejoices with the truth.^{(O) 7} It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.^(P)

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,^(Q) they will cease; where there are tongues,^(R) they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part^(S) and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes,^(T) what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood^(U) behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;^(V) then we shall see face to face.^(W) Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.^(X)

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.^(Y) But the greatest of these is love.^(Z)

The Purity of the Camp

5 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease^[a](A) or a discharge^(B) of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean^(C) because of a dead body.^{(D) 3} Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.^(E)” ⁴ The Israelites did so; they sent them outside the camp. They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses.

Restitution for Wrongs

⁵ The Lord said to Moses, ⁶ “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way^[b] and so is unfaithful^(F) to the Lord is guilty^{(G) 7} and must confess^(H) the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution^(I) for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged. ⁸ But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest, along with the ram^(J) with which atonement is made for the wrongdoer.^{(K) 9} All the sacred contributions the Israelites bring to a priest will belong to him.^{(L) 10} Sacred things belong to their owners, but what they give to the priest will belong to the priest.^(M)’”

The Test for an Unfaithful Wife

¹¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, ¹² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray^(N) and is unfaithful to him ¹³ so that another man has sexual relations with her,^(O) and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), ¹⁴ and if feelings of jealousy^(P) come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— ¹⁵ then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah^[c](Q) of barley flour^(R) on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy,^(S) a reminder-offering^(T) to draw attention to wrongdoing.

¹⁶ “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. ¹⁷ Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. ¹⁸ After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair^(U) and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy,^(V) while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse.^{(W) 19} Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray^(X) and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse^(Y) not harm you. ²⁰ But if you have gone astray^(Z) while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— ²¹ here the priest is to put the woman under this curse^(AA)—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse^[d] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. ²² May this water^(AB) that brings a curse^(AC) enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.^(AD)”

²³ “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll^(AE) and then wash them off into the bitter water. ²⁴ He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. ²⁵ The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord^(AF) and bring it to the altar. ²⁶ The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial^[e] offering^(AG) and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. ²⁷ If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse.^{(AH) 28} If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

²⁹ “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray^(AI) and makes herself impure while married to her husband, ³⁰ or when feelings of jealousy^(AJ) come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. ³¹ The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences^(AK) of her sin.’”