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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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“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
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She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold— which they used for Baal.
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So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands.
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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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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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“But let no one bring a charge, let no one accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest.
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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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For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.
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Israel is swallowed up; now she is among the nations like something no one wants.
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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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Even if they rear children, I will bereave them of every one. Woe to them when I turn away from them!
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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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“Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, Israel, and there you have remained. Will not war again overtake the evildoers in Gibeah?
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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 led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.
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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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Israel’s Sin
Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, Israel with deceit. And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.
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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.”
