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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,[a]
    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;[b]
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.”

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Footnotes

  1. Hosea 2:2 Literally “from her face”
  2. Hosea 2:5 Or “their mother played the whore”

Israel’s Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption

Plead with your mother, plead—
    for she is not my wife,
    and I am not her husband—
that she put away her prostitution from her face
    and her adultery from between her breasts,(A)
or I will strip her naked
    and expose her as in the day she was born
and make her like a wilderness
    and turn her into a parched land
    and kill her with thirst.(B)
Upon her children also I will have no pity,
    because they are children of prostitution.(C)
For their mother has prostituted herself;
    she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
    they give me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”(D)

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