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The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:
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Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.
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In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”
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Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them.
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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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The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.
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Israel Punished and Restored
“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
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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 ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.
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I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord.
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“In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’
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“In that day I will respond,” declares the Lord— “I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth;
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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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You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you. So I will destroy your mother—
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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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And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.
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“They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not flourish, because they have deserted the Lord to give themselves
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“Though you, Israel, commit adultery, do not let Judah become guilty. “Do not go to Gilgal; do not go up to Beth Aven. And do not swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’
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The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the Lord pasture them like lambs in a meadow?
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Even when their drinks are gone, they continue their prostitution; their rulers dearly love shameful ways.
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Judgment Against Israel
“Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! Listen, royal house! This judgment is against you: You have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor.
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The rebels are knee-deep in slaughter. I will discipline all of them.
