Beginning
God Commands Hosea to Start a Family
1 The word of Yahweh that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
2 At the beginning when Yahweh spoke[a] through Hosea,
Yahweh said to Hosea,
“Go, take for yourself a wife and children of whoredom,
because the land commits great whoredom
forsaking Yahweh.”[b]
3 So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim,
and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 And Yahweh said to him,
“Name him[c] Jezreel;[d]
because in a little while I will punish[e] the house of Jehu[f]
for the blood[g] of Jezreel,[h]
and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.[i]
5 On that day[j]
I will break the bow of Israel
in the Valley of Jezreel.”
6 And she conceived again and bore a daughter, and he[k] said to him,
“Name her[l] Lo-ruhamah,[m]
for I will no longer have pity
on the house of Israel
or forgive them.[n]
7 But I will have pity on the house of Judah
and I will save them by Yahweh their God,
and will not deliver them
by bow, sword, war,
horses, or horsemen.
8 And when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah,[o] she conceived and bore a son.
9 And he[p] said, “Name him[q] Lo-ammi,[r]
for you are not my people
and I am not your God.[s]
10 [t] The number of the children of Israel
will be like the sand of the sea
that cannot be measured or counted;
and in the place where it is said to them,
“You are not my people,”
it will be said to them,
“Children of the living God.”
11 Then the children of Judah
and Israel will be gathered together,
and they will appoint for themselves
one head;
and they will take possession of[u] the land,
for great is the day of Jezreel.[v]
The Unfaithful Wife
2 Say to your brother,[w] “Ammi,”[x]
and to your sister,[y] “Ruhamah.”[z]
2 Plead with your mother, plead—
because she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her put away her whoring from before her,[aa]
and her adultery from between her breasts.
3 Lest I strip her naked
and expose her like the day when she was born;
I will make her like the desert
and turn her into parched land;
I will kill her with thirst.
4 And I will not have pity on her children,
because they are children of whoredom.
5 Because their mother was unfaithful;[ab]
she who conceived them has acted shamefully,
for she said:
“I will go after my lovers,
the ones who give me my bread, my water,
my wool, and my flax,
my oil, and my drink.”
6 Therefore, Look!
I am going to hedge her path[ac] with thorns,[ad]
and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall against her,
and she will not find her paths.
7 Then she will pursue her lovers,[ae]
but she will not overtake them;
she will seek them and not find them;
and she will say, “I will go
and return to my first husband
because it was better for me then than now.”
8 But she did not know
that it was I who gave her
grain, new wine, and oil,
and who gave her silver in abundance,
and gold which they made into a Baal.
9 Therefore I will take again
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season;
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 And now I will uncover her nakedness
before the eyes of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from my hand.
11 And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her festivals,[af] her new moons,[ag] and her Sabbaths,[ah]
and all her appointed festivals;[ai]
12 and I will lay waste to her vines[aj] and her fig trees,[ak]
of which she said,
“They are my payment for prostitution,
which my lovers gave to me.”
I will make them a forest,
and the wild animals[al] of the field will devour them.
13 I will punish her[am] for the days of the Baals,
to whom she burns incense,
and she decked herself with her ornamental ring and jewelry,
and she went after her lovers, and forgot me
—a declaration of Yahweh.
14 Therefore, Look! I am going to allure her
and bring her into the desert,
and I will speak tenderly to her.[an]
15 From there I will give her
her vineyards,
and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope.
And there she will respond,
as in the days of her youth,
just as in the day of her coming out of
the land of Egypt.
16 And on that day—[ao]
a declaration of Yahweh—
you will call me, “My husband;”[ap]
you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”[aq]
17 I will remove the names
of the Baals from her mouth,
and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.
18 I will make a covenant for them on that day,
with the animals[ar] of the field,
with the birds[as] of the heaven, and
with the creeping things[at] of the ground;
the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.
19 And I will take you as my wife forever;
I will take you as a wife for myself in righteousness and in justice,
in steadfast love and in mercy.
20 I will take you as my wife[au] in faithfulness,
and you will know Yahweh.
21 On that day I will answer, declares Yahweh,[av]
I will answer the heavens,
and they will answer the earth.
22 And the earth will answer
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they will answer Jezreel.[aw]
23 I will sow her for myself in the land;
I will have pity on Lo-ruhama;[ax]
I will say to Lo-ammi,[ay]
“You are my people,”
and he himself will say, “you are my God.”
Another Symbolic Marriage
3 And Yahweh said to me again,
“Go, love a woman
who has a lover[az] and is committing adultery,
just like the love of Yahweh for the children of Israel,
but they are turning to other gods
and love raisin cakes.”
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver
and a homer of barely and a measure of wine.[ba]
3 And I said to her,
“You must remain as mine[bb] for many days,
and you will not play the whore;
you will not belong[bc] to a man,
and I will belong to you.”
4 The children of Israel will remain for many days
without a king and prince,
without sacrifice and stone pillar, ephod and teraphim.
5 Afterward the children of Israel will return
and seek Yahweh their God and David their king.
They will come in fear to Yahweh
and to his goodness at the end of days.
Yahweh Has an Indictment
4 Hear the word of Yahweh, O children of Israel,
for Yahweh has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty,
there is no knowledge of God in the land.
2 Swearing and lying,
murdering and stealing,
and adultery break out,[bd]
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Therefore the land mourns,
and all those living in it languish
with the animals of the field,
and the birds of the heaven,
and even the fish of the sea
are being swept away.
4 Yet, let no one contend,
and let no one accuse,
for with you, O priest, is my contention.[be]
5 You will stumble by day,
and the priest also will stumble
with you at night.
And I will destroy your mother;
6 My people are destroyed
for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from acting as a priest for me.[bf]
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your children.[bg]
7 When they became many, their sin increased against me;
they changed[bh] their glory into shame.
8 They feed on the sin of my people,[bi]
they are greedy[bj] for their iniquity.
9 And it will be like people, like priest;
I will punish them[bk] for their[bl] ways,
and I will requite them[bm] for their[bn] deeds.
10 They will eat and not be satisfied;
they will play the whore and not multiply,
because they have forsaken Yahweh to devote themselves to
11 whoredom.[bo]
Wine and new wine take away the understanding.[bp]
12 My people,
consult their wooden idols,[bq]
and their divining rod gives them oracles;
because a spirit of whoredom led them astray,
and they played the whore from under their God.[br]
13 On the tops of the mountains they sacrifice,
and on the hills they make offerings,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
because their[bs] shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the whore,
and all your daughters-in-law[bt] commit adultery.
14 I will not punish your daughters[bu] when they play the whore,
or your daughters-in-law[bv] when they commit adultery;
because they go aside with whores,
and they sacrifice with temple prostitutes,
a people that does not understand comes to ruin.
15 Even though you, O Israel, are playing the whore,
do not let Judah become guilty;
do not enter Gilgal,
or go up to Beth-aven;
and do not swear,
“As Yahweh lives!”[bw]
16 Indeed, like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
Now Yahweh will feed them,
like a lamb in broad pasture.[bx]
17 Ephraim is joined to idols;
let him alone.
18 When their drinking has ended,
they surely indulge in sexual orgies.
They love lewdness more than their[by] glory.
19 A wind has wrapped them[bz] in its wings,
and they will be ashamed because of their altars.
The Priests Are a Snare
5 Hear this, O priests!
Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
Because the judgment applies to you;
because you have been a snare for Mizpah,
and a net spread out on Tabor;
2 they dug a deep pit[ca] in Shittim,
but I am a punishment for all of them.
3 I myself know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me;
because now you have played the whore, O Ephraim—
Israel is defiled.
4 Their deeds do not permit them
to return them to God.
Because a spirit of whoredom is in their midst,
they do not know Yahweh.
5 The pride of Israel testifies against him,[cb]
and Israel and Ephraim stumble in their guilt,
and Judah stumbles with them.
6 With their flocks[cc] and herds[cd] they will go
to seek Yahweh, but they will not find him;
he has withdrawn from them.
7 They have dealt faithlessly with Yahweh
because they have borne illegitimate children.
Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.
8 Blow the horn[ce] in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm in Beth-aven;
look behind you, Benjamin.
9 Ephraim will be a desolation
in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
I will reveal what is true.
10 The princes of Judah have become
like those who remove a landmark;
on them I will pour out
my wrath like water.
11 Ephraim is oppressed,
crushed in judgment,
because he was determined
to go after filth.[cf]
12 But I am like a maggot to Ephraim
and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
13 And when Ephraim saw his illness,
and Judah his wound,
Ephraim went to Assyria,
he sent to the great king.[cg]
But he was unable to cure you
and heal your wound.
14 Because I will be like a lion to Ephraim
and like a fierce strong lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and I will go;
I will carry off, and there is no one who delivers.
15 I will return again[ch] to my place
until they acknowledge their guilt
and seek my face;
in their distress they will search[ci] me.
A Call to Yahweh
6 Come, let us return to Yahweh;
because it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck us down and will bind us up.
2 He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live in his presence.[cj]
3 Let us know, let us press on to know Yahweh;
his rising is sure like the dawn.
He will come like the showers to us,
like the spring rain that waters the earth.
4 What will I do with you, O Ephraim?
What will I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early in the morning.
5 Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment[ck] goes forth like the light.
6 Because I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
7 But like Adam, they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
8 Gilead is a city of evil,
a cunning city because of blood.[cl]
9 Like bandits lying in wait,
so is a band of priests;
they murder on the road to Shechem;
indeed, they commit a monstrous crime.
10 In the house of Israel I have seen something horrible;
Ephraim’s unfaithfulness is there.
Israel is defiled.
Ephraim’s Guilt
11 For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed,
when I restore the fortunes of my people,
7 when I would heal Israel,
and the corruption of Ephraim is revealed,
and the wicked deeds of Samaria;
because they deal in falsehood,
the thief breaks in,[cm]
and the bandit raids the outside.
2 But they did not consider[cn]
that I remember all their wickedness.
Now their deeds surround them;
they are before my face.
3 By their wickedness they make the king glad,
and the officials by their treacheries.
4 All of them commit adultery,
like a burning oven
whose baker has stopped from stirring the fire,
and from kneading the dough until it is leavened.
5 On the day of our king, the princes
became sick with the heat of wine;[co]
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
6 Because they are kindled[cp] like an oven,
their heart burns within them;
all night their anger smolders,[cq]
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
7 All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour[cr] their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
there is none who calls to me amongst them.
8 Ephraim mixes himself
with the nations;
Ephraim is a bread cake
not turned over.
9 Foreigners devour[cs] his strength,
and he does not know it;
mold[ct] is also sprinkled upon him,
and he does not know it.
10 The pride of Israel testifies against him[cu]—
they do not return to Yahweh their God;
they do not seek him for all of this.[cv]
11 Ephraim was like a dove,
silly, without sense;[cw]
they call to Egypt,
they go to Assyria.
12 Just as they go, I will cast my net
over them;
I will bring them down
like the birds[cx] of the heavens;[cy]
I will discipline them
according to a report to their assembly.[cz]
13 Woe to them, because they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me!
I myself would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.
14 They do not cry out to me from their heart,
but they wail on their beds;
because of grain and new wine they lacerate[da] themselves;
they depart from me.
15 And I myself trained
and strengthened their arms;
but they plan evil against me.
16 They turn, not to the Most High,[db]
like a slack bow;
their officials will fall by the sword
because of the anger of their tongue.
This is their scorn[dc]
in the land of Egypt.
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