¹¹ Judah has been unfaithful, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. The men of Judah have defiled the Lord’s beloved sanctuary by marrying women who worship idols.

Hosea’s Wife Is Redeemed

3 Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she^[a] commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.^[b]”

¹⁵ “But you thought your fame and beauty were your own. So you gave yourself as a prostitute to every man who came along. Your beauty was theirs for the asking. ¹⁶ You used the lovely things I gave you to make shrines for idols, where you played the prostitute. Unbelievable! How could such a thing ever happen? ¹⁷ You took the very jewels and gold and silver ornaments I had given you and made statues of men and worshiped them. This is adultery against me! ¹⁸ You used the beautifully embroidered clothes I gave you to dress your idols. Then you used my special oil and my incense to worship them. ¹⁹ Imagine it! You set before them as a sacrifice the choice flour, olive oil, and honey I had given you, says the Sovereign Lord.

²⁰ “Then you took your sons and daughters—the children you had borne to me—and sacrificed them to your gods. Was your prostitution not enough? ²¹ Must you also slaughter my children by sacrificing them to idols? ²² In all your years of adultery and detestable sin, you have not once remembered the days long ago when you lay naked in a field, kicking about in your own blood.

²³ “What sorrow awaits you, says the Sovereign Lord. In addition to all your other wickedness, ²⁴ you built a pagan shrine and put altars to idols in every town square. ²⁵ On every street corner you defiled your beauty, offering your body to every passerby in an endless stream of prostitution. ²⁶ Then you added lustful Egypt to your lovers, provoking my anger with your increasing promiscuity. ²⁷ That is why I struck you with my fist and reduced your boundaries. I handed you over to your enemies, the Philistines, and even they were shocked by your lewd conduct. ²⁸ You have prostituted yourself with the Assyrians, too. It seems you can never find enough new lovers! And after your prostitution there, you still were not satisfied. ²⁹ You added to your lovers by embracing Babylonia,^[a] the land of merchants, but you still weren’t satisfied.

³⁰ “What a sick heart you have, says the Sovereign Lord, to do such things as these, acting like a shameless prostitute. ³¹ You build your pagan shrines on every street corner and your altars to idols in every square. In fact, you have been worse than a prostitute, so eager for sin that you have not even demanded payment. ³² Yes, you are an adulterous wife who takes in strangers instead of her own husband. ³³ Prostitutes charge for their services—but not you! You give gifts to your lovers, bribing them to come and have sex with you. ³⁴ So you are the opposite of other prostitutes. You pay your lovers instead of their paying you!

Judgment on Jerusalem’s Prostitution

³⁵ “Therefore, you prostitute, listen to this message from the Lord! ³⁶ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you have poured out your lust and exposed yourself in prostitution to all your lovers, and because you have worshiped detestable idols,^[b] and because you have slaughtered your children as sacrifices to your gods, ³⁷ this is what I am going to do. I will gather together all your allies—the lovers with whom you have sinned, both those you loved and those you hated—and I will strip you naked in front of them so they can stare at you. ³⁸ I will punish you for your murder and adultery. I will cover you with blood in my jealous fury. ³⁹ Then I will give you to these many nations who are your lovers, and they will destroy you. They will knock down your pagan shrines and the altars to your idols. They will strip you and take your beautiful jewels, leaving you stark naked. ⁴⁰ They will band together in a mob to stone you and cut you up with swords. ⁴¹ They will burn your homes and punish you in front of many women. I will stop your prostitution and end your payments to your many lovers.

⁴² “Then at last my fury against you will be spent, and my jealous anger will subside. I will be calm and will not be angry with you anymore. ⁴³ But first, because you have not remembered your youth but have angered me by doing all these evil things, I will fully repay you for all of your sins, says the Sovereign Lord. For you have added lewd acts to all your detestable sins. ⁴⁴ Everyone who makes up proverbs will say of you, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ ⁴⁵ For your mother loathed her husband and her children, and so do you. And you are exactly like your sisters, for they despised their husbands and their children. Truly your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

⁴⁶ “Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters in the north. Your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters in the south. ⁴⁷ But you have not merely sinned as they did. You quickly surpassed them in corruption. ⁴⁸ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, Sodom and her daughters were never as wicked as you and your daughters. ⁴⁹ Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. ⁵⁰ She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen.^[c]

⁵¹ “Even Samaria did not commit half your sins. You have done far more detestable things than your sisters ever did. They seem righteous compared to you. ⁵² Shame on you! Your sins are so terrible that you make your sisters seem righteous, even virtuous.

⁸ She saw^[a] that I divorced faithless Israel because of her adultery. But that treacherous sister Judah had no fear, and now she, too, has left me and given herself to prostitution. ⁹ Israel treated it all so lightly—she thought nothing of committing adultery by worshiping idols made of wood and stone. So now the land has been polluted. ¹⁰ But despite all this, her faithless sister Judah has never sincerely returned to me. She has only pretended to be sorry. I, the Lord, have spoken!”