Beginning

“Go forth and take a harlot for a wife,
    and father children of harlotry,
for the people have devoted themselves to adultery
    and turned away from the Lord.”

“Name the boy Jezreel,
    for in a short time
I will punish the house of Jehu
    for the blood shed at Jezreel,
and I will bring an end to the kingdom
    of the house of Israel.
⁵ On that day I will demolish the bow of Israel
    in the Valley of Jezreel.”

“Give her the name Lo-ruhama,
    for I no longer have compassion for the house of Israel,
    nor do I wish to forgive them.
⁷ However, I do have pity on the house of Judah,
    and I will save them by the Lord, their God.
But I will not deliver them by war,
    nor by sword or bow,
    nor by horses or horsemen.”^[d]

“Give him the name Lo-ammi,
    for you are not my people,
    and I am not your God.”

¹ The Israelites will be as numerous
    as the sands of the sea,
    which can be neither measured nor numbered.
And in the very place where it was said to them,
    “You are not my people,”
    they will be called, “Children of the Living God.”
² The people of Judah and of Israel
    shall be gathered together.
They will choose one person to be their leader,
    and they shall enlarge their boundaries,
    for great will be the day of Jezreel.
³ Say to your brothers, “You are my people,”
    and to your sisters, “You are beloved.”

⁴ Insist that your mother repent,^[g]
    for she is no longer my wife,
    and I am not her husband.
If she does not cease her harlotry
    and the use of her breasts in adulterous acts,
⁵ I shall strip her bare,^[h]
    leaving her as naked as the day she was born.
I shall make her as barren as the wilderness
    and as parched as the desert,
    leaving her to die of thirst.
⁶ Nor will I feel any pity for her children,
    since they are the offspring of adultery.
⁷ Yes, their mother has been a whore;
    she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
    they will supply me with my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”
⁸ That is why I will block her path with thornbushes
    and erect a wall to hinder her,
    so that she cannot proceed on her journey.
⁹ Although she pursues her lovers,^[i]
    she will not be able to overtake them.
If she looks for them,
    she will not find them.
Finally she will say,
    “I will return to my first husband,
    since I was far better off then than I am now.”
¹⁰ She has never realized
    that I was the one who gave her
    the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her the silver and gold
    that they used for Baal.
¹¹ For this reason I intend to take back
    my grain when it is ready for the harvest
    and my new wine during the time of vintage.
And I will retrieve the wool and the flax
    with which her nakedness was to be covered.
¹² Now I will reveal her lewdness
    before the eyes of her lovers,
    and no one shall rescue her from my hands.
¹³ I will put an end to all her merrymaking,
    her festivals, her new moons, and her sabbaths,
    and all of her solemn festivals.
¹⁴ I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
    about which she said,
“These are the payment
    I have received from my lovers.”
I shall allow them to grow wild,
    and ferocious beasts will devour them.
¹⁵ I will inflict punishment on her
    for the festival days of the Baals,
when she burned incense to them,
    and adorned herself with her rings and jewels
and ran after her lovers
    while she forgot me, says the Lord.

¹⁶ As a result, now I intend to allure her,
    lead her into the wilderness,
    and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁷ From there I will restore her vineyards to her
    and make the Valley of Achor^[k] a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth,
    when she came up from the land of Egypt.
¹⁸ On that day, says the Lord,
    she will call me “My husband,”
    and never again call me “My Baal.”
¹⁹ I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth;
    never again shall their names be invoked.
²⁰ On that day I will make for you
    a covenant with the wild animals,
with the birds of the air,
    and the things that creep on the ground.
I will destroy bows and swords and warfare
    and banish them from the land
    so that you may lie down in security.
²¹ I will betroth you to myself forever;
    I will espouse you in righteousness and in justice,
    in steadfast love and in mercy.
²² I will take you for my wife in fidelity,
    and you will know the Lord.
²³ On that day I will respond,
    says the Lord.
I will respond to the heavens,
    and they will respond to the earth,
²⁴ and the earth will respond to the grain, the wine, and the oil,
    and they will respond to Jezreel.
²⁵ I will sow her for myself in the land,
    and I will have pity on Lo-ruhama.
I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,”
    and he will say, “You are my God.”

“Go forth and offer your love to a woman
    who has a lover and is an adulteress,
just as I, the Lord, love the people of Israel
    even though they turn to other gods
    and love raisin cakes.”^[m]

“You must remain in my house for a long time,
    and you shall not continue to play the harlot.
You shall not have relations with anyone else,
    nor even with me.”
⁴ For the Israelites shall spend a long time
    without a king or leader,
without sacrifice or sacred pillar,
    without ephod or household idols.
⁵ Afterward the Israelites shall return
    and seek the Lord, their God,
    and David, their king.^[n]
They will come trembling to the Lord
    to beg for his bounty in the final days.

¹ Hear the word of the Lord,
    people of Israel,
for the Lord has decreed an indictment
    against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty,
    nor any knowledge of God in the land.
² Instead, people swear oaths and break them;
    they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery,
    with never-ceasing bloodshed.
³ Therefore, the land is in mourning,
    and all who dwell in it languish,
including the wild beasts and the birds of the air;
    even the fish of the sea are perishing.

⁴ But let no one protest
    or make accusations;
    my quarrel is with you, O priests.
⁵ You shall stumble in the daylight,
    while the prophets will stumble with you at night,
    and I will destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are perishing
    for want of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
    I will reject you as my priests.
And since you have forsaken the law of your God,
    I will also reject your children.
⁷ The more the number of priests increased,
    the more they sinned against me,
    turning their glory into shame.
⁸ They feed on the sins of my people;
    they are insatiable in their hunger for iniquity.
⁹ The priests and the people will share the same fate;
    I shall punish them for their conduct
    and repay them for their deeds.
¹⁰ They will eat but never be satisfied;
    they will engage in prostitution but never have children,
because they have abandoned the Lord
¹¹     to devote themselves to immorality.

Wine, both old and new,
    deprives my people of understanding.
¹² They consult a piece of wood for advice,
    and their divining rod^[o] provides the answers they seek.
For a spirit of promiscuity has led them astray,
    and their immorality causes them to forsake their God.
¹³ They offer sacrifice on the mountaintops
    and burn incense on the hills,
beneath oak and poplar and terebinth
    because the shade they afford is pleasant.
¹⁴ I shall not punish your daughters for becoming prostitutes
    or your daughters-in-law for committing adultery.
For your men themselves consort with harlots
    and offer sacrifice with temple prostitutes;
    a people thus devoid of understanding is doomed.
¹⁵ Though you, O Israel, play the whore,
    do not allow Judah to incur such guilt.
Do not come to Gilgal
    or go up to Beth-aven,
    and do not swear, “As the Lord lives!”^[p]
16 For Israel is as stubborn as a heifer;
    will the Lord now feed them
    like lambs in a broad meadow?
¹⁷ Ephraim has associated with idols;
    let them alone.
¹⁸ When their drinking binge has ended,
    they indulge in sexual orgies,
    preferring lewdness to their glory.
¹⁹ The wind has carried them off in its wings,
    and their sacrifices will only bring them shame.

¹ Hear this, O priests!
    Listen closely, O house of Israel!
Give heed, O house of the king,
    for you will be called to judgment!
For you have been a snare at Mizpah,^[q]
    and a net spread out upon Tabor,
² and a deep pit at Shittim;
    I shall punish all of them.
³ I know Ephraim,
    and Israel is not hidden from me.
Despite this, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot,
    and Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not allow them
    to return to their God.
For the spirit of immorality has possessed them,
    and they no longer know the Lord.
⁵ Israel’s arrogance testifies against them;
    Ephraim stumbles in their guilt,
    and Judah stumbles with them.
⁶ With their sheep and their cattle,
    they shall go forth to seek the Lord.
However, they will not find him,
    for he has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They have betrayed the Lord,
    for they have borne illegitimate children.^[r]
Now the new moon shall devour them
    along with their fields.

⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah,^[t]
    the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven:
    “Look behind you, O Benjamin!”
⁹ Ephraim shall become a wasteland
    on the day of punishment.
Against the tribes of Israel
    I have decreed certain doom.
¹⁰ The rulers of Judah act like men
    who move their neighbor’s boundary line.
On them I will pour out
    my wrath like a flood.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
    being intent on pursuing idols.
¹² Therefore, I am like an infectious sore for Ephraim,
    like maggots for the house of Judah.
¹³ When Ephraim realized that he was ill
    and Judah noted that he was covered with sores,
Ephraim went to Assyria,
    and Judah sent envoys to the great king.
However, he has no power to cure you
    or to heal your sores.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
    like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will maul them and depart;
    I will carry them off,
    and no one will be able to rescue them.
¹⁵ I shall go back to my dwelling place
    until they acknowledge their guilt
    and seek my presence.^[u]
In their affliction,
    they will beseech my favor.

^1 [v]“Come, let us return to the Lord;
    he has wounded us, but he will heal us;
    he has struck us down, but he will bind up our wounds.
² After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day^[w] he will raise us up
    to live in his presence.
³ Let us know the Lord;
    let us strive to know him.
His coming is as sure as the dawn;
    he will come to us like a shower,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”
⁴ What can I do with you, Ephraim?
    What can I do with you, Judah?
Your love is like a morning mist,
    like the dew that quickly evaporates.
⁵ That is the reason why I cut them to pieces
    by means of the prophets.
I have slaughtered them by the word of my mouth,
    and my judgment goes forth like the dawn.
⁶ For steadfast love rather than sacrifice is what pleases me,
    and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷ But in their land^[x] they broke the covenant;
    it was there that they were unfaithful to me.
⁸ Gilead^[y] is a city of evildoers,
    stained with bloody footprints.
⁹ Like robbers waiting in ambush,
    priests are banded together.
They commit murder on the road to Shechem,
    perpetrating monstrous crimes.
¹⁰ I have witnessed a horrible thing
    in the house of Israel.
There Ephraim engages in prostitution
    and Israel is defiled.
¹¹ And for you also, O Judah,
    a harvest of reprisal has been designated.^[z]

¹ Whenever I decide to restore the fortunes of my people
    and prepare to heal Israel,
the guilt of Ephraim confronts me
    as well as the wicked deeds of Samaria.
They practice deceit;
    thieves break into houses
    while bandits plunder in the streets.^[aa]
2 But they somehow fail to remind themselves
    that I remember all their wickedness.
I will not forget their wicked deeds;
    they are constantly before my eyes.

³ They delight the king with their wickedness
    and the princes with their treachery.
⁴ All of them are adulterers;
    they are like an oven all ablaze
whose fire the baker does not need to stoke
    from the kneading of the dough until it has risen.
⁵ On the festal day of their king,
    the princes become inflamed with wine
while the king extends his hand
    to those who mock him.^[ab]
6 For they are heated like ovens
    while their heart burns within them.
All through the night their passion slumbers;
    in the morning it blazes forth like a flaming fire.
⁷ All of them are as hot as ovens,
    and they consume their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
    not one of them calls out to me.

⁸ Ephraim mixes with the nations;
    Ephraim is a half-baked cake.^[ac]
9 Foreigners have sapped his strength,
    but he is unaware of it.
His hair is beginning to turn gray,
    but he does not realize it.
¹⁰ Israel’s arrogance testifies against them,
    but despite all this,
they do not return to the Lord, their God,
    nor do they seek him.
¹¹ Ephraim has become like a dove,
    silly and without any sense.
They call upon Egypt;
    they turn to Assyria.
¹² Wherever they turn,
    I will cast my net over them.
I will bring them down
    like birds of the sky.
I will discipline them
    because of their evil deeds.
¹³ Woe to them,
    for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them,
    for they have rebelled against me!
I longed to redeem them,
    but they continued to tell lies about me.
¹⁴ They have not cried out to me from their hearts
    while they wailed upon their beds.
When they gash themselves to obtain grain and new wine,^[ad]
    they are still rebelling against me.
¹⁵ Even though I supported and strengthened them,
    they devise evil plots against me.
¹⁶ Everything they devise is of no avail;
    they are like a defective bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
    because of their insolent words.
As a result, they will be ridiculed
    in the land of Egypt.