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Yet I will show love to Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, the Lord their God, will save them.”
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Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.
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“Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’
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Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.
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I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
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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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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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Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.
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The Charge Against Israel
Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.
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my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.
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The more priests there were, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.
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My people consult a wooden idol, and a diviner’s rod speaks to them. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God.
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“Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the Lord.
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Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face— in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”
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For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
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Israel’s arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this he does not return to the Lord his God or search for him.
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They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail on their beds. They slash themselves, appealing to their gods for grain and new wine, but they turn away from me.
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Israel cries out to me, ‘Our God, we acknowledge you!’
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They are from Israel! This calf—a metalworker has made it; it is not God. It will be broken in pieces, that calf of Samaria.
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Punishment for Israel
Do not rejoice, Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor.
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The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.
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They have sunk deep into corruption, as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.
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My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.
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God’s Love for Israel
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
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My people are determined to turn from me. Even though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them.
