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Hosea’s Reconciliation With His Wife
The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
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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.”
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For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods.
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“Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning.
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I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something foreign.
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Israel has forgotten their Maker and built palaces; Judah has fortified many towns. But I will send fire on their cities that will consume their fortresses.”
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The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired person a maniac.
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They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
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But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors,
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I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. For I am God, and not a man— the Holy One among you. I will not come against their cities.
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In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God.
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I spoke to the prophets, gave them many visions and told parables through them.”
