Chronological
1 The Lord spoke his word to Hosea son of Beeri during the time that Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.
Hosea’s Wife and Children
2 When the Lord began speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, and marry an unfaithful woman and have unfaithful children, because the people in this country have been completely unfaithful to the Lord.” 3 So Hosea married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Hosea’s son.
4 The Lord said to Hosea, “Name him Jezreel, because soon I will punish the family of Jehu for the people they killed at Jezreel. In the future I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel 5 and break the power of Israel’s army in the Valley of Jezreel.”
6 Gomer became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. The Lord said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-Ruhamah,[a] because I will not pity Israel anymore, nor will I forgive them. 7 But I will show pity to the people of Judah. I will save them, but not by using bows or swords, horses or horsemen, or weapons of war. I, the Lord their God, will save them.”
8 After Gomer had stopped nursing Lo-Ruhamah, she became pregnant again and gave birth to another son. 9 The Lord said, “Name him Lo-Ammi,[b] because you are not my people, and I am not your God.
God’s Promise to Israel
10 “But the number of the Israelites will become like the grains of sand of the sea, which no one can measure or count. They were called, ‘You are not my people,’ but later they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ 11 The people of Judah and Israel will join together again and will choose one leader for themselves. They will come up from the land, because the day of Jezreel[c] will be truly great.
2 “You are to call your brothers, ‘my people,’ and your sisters, ‘you have been shown pity.’
God Speaks About Israel
2 “Plead with your mother.[d]
Accuse her, because she is no longer my wife,
and I am no longer her husband.
Tell her to stop acting like a prostitute,
to stop behaving like an unfaithful wife.
3 If she refuses, I will strip her naked
and leave her bare like the day she was born.
I will make her dry like a desert,
like a land without water,
and I will kill her with thirst.
4 I will not take pity on her children,
because they are the children of a prostitute.
5 Their mother has acted like a prostitute;
the one who became pregnant with them has acted disgracefully.
She said, ‘I will chase after my lovers,[e]
who give me my food and water,
wool and flax, wine and olive oil.’
6 So I will block her road with thornbushes;
I will build a wall around her
so she cannot find her way.
7 She will run after her lovers,
but she won’t catch them.
She will look for them,
but she won’t find them.
Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband,[f]
because life was better then for me than it is now.’
8 But she does not know that I was the one
who gave her grain, new wine, and oil.
I gave her much silver and gold,
but she used it for Baal.
9 “So I will come back and take away my grain at harvest time
and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and linen
that covered her nakedness.
10 So I will show her nakedness to her lovers,
and no one will save her from me.
11 I will put an end to all her celebrations:
her yearly festivals, her New Moon festivals, and her Sabbaths.
I will stop all of her special feasts.
12 I will destroy her vines and fig trees,
which she said were her pay from her lovers.
I will turn them into a forest,
and wild animals will eat them.
13 I will punish her for all the times
she burned incense to the Baals.
She put on her rings and jewelry
and went chasing after her lovers,
but she forgot me!”
says the Lord.
14 “So I am going to attract her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and I will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.
There she will respond as when she was young,
as when she came out of Egypt.”
16 The Lord says, “In the future she will call me ‘my husband’;
no longer will she call me ‘my baal.’[g]
17 I will never let her say the names of Baal again;
people won’t use their names anymore.
18 At that time I will make an agreement for them
with the wild animals, the birds, and the crawling things.
I will smash from the land
the bow and the sword and the weapons of war,
so my people will live in safety.
19 And I will make you my promised bride forever.
I will be good and fair;
I will show you my love and mercy.
20 I will be true to you as my promised bride,
and you will know the Lord.
21 “At that time I will speak to you,” says the Lord.
“I will speak to the skies,
and they will give rain to the earth.
22 The earth will produce grain, new wine, and oil;
much will grow because my people are called Jezreel.[h]
23 I will plant my people in the land,
and I will show pity to the one I had called ‘not shown pity.’
I will say, ‘You are my people’
to those I had called ‘not my people.’
And they will say to me, ‘You are our God.’”
Hosea Buys a Wife
3 The Lord said to me again, “Go, show your love to a woman loved by someone else, who has been unfaithful to you. In the same way the Lord loves the people of Israel, even though they worship other gods and love to eat the raisin cakes.”[i]
2 So I bought her for six ounces of silver and ten bushels of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You must wait for me for many days. You must not be a prostitute, and you must not have sexual relations with any other man. I will act the same way toward you.”
4 In the same way Israel will live many days without a king or leader, without sacrifices or holy stone pillars, and without the holy vest or an idol. 5 After this, the people of Israel will return to the Lord their God and follow him and the king from David’s family. In the last days they will turn in fear to the Lord, and he will bless them.
The Lord’s Word Against Israel
4 People of Israel, listen to the Lord’s message.
The Lord has this
against you who live in the land:
“The people are not true, not loyal to God,
nor do those who live in the land even know him.
2 Cursing, lying, killing, stealing and adultery are everywhere.
One murder follows another.
3 Because of this the land dries up,
and all its people are dying.
Even the wild animals and the birds of the air
and the fish of the sea are dying.
God’s Case Against the Priests
4 “No one should accuse
or blame another person.
Don’t blame the people, you priests,
when they quarrel with you.
5 You will be ruined in the day,
and your prophets will be ruined with you in the night.
I will also destroy your mother.[j]
6 My people will be destroyed,
because they have no knowledge.
You have refused to learn,
so I will refuse to let you be priests to me.
You have forgotten the teachings of your God,
so I will forget your children.
7 The more priests there are,
the more they sin against me.
I will take away their honor
and give them shame.
8 Since the priests live off the sin offerings of the people,
they want the people to sin more and more.
9 The priests are as wrong as the people,
and I will punish them both for what they have done.
I will repay them for the wrong they have done.
10 “They will eat
but not have enough;
they will have sexual relations with the prostitutes,
but they will not have children,
because they have left the Lord
to give themselves to 11 prostitution,
to old and new wine,
which take away their ability to understand.
God’s Case Against the People
12 “My people ask wooden idols for advice;
they ask those sticks of wood to advise them!
Like prostitutes, they have chased after other gods
and have left their own God.
13 They make sacrifices on the tops of the mountains.
They burn offerings on the hills,
under oaks, poplars, and other trees,
because their shade is nice.
So your daughters become prostitutes,
and your daughters-in-law are guilty of adultery.
14 “But I will not punish your daughters
for becoming prostitutes,
nor your daughters-in-law
for their sins of adultery.
I will not punish them,
because the men have sexual relations with prostitutes
and offer sacrifices with the temple prostitutes.
A foolish people will be ruined.
15 “Israel, you act like a prostitute,
but do not be guilty toward the Lord.
Don’t go to Gilgal
or go up to Beth Aven.[k]
Don’t make promises,
saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives . . .’
16 The people of Israel are stubborn
like a stubborn young cow.
Now the Lord will feed them
like lambs in the open country.
17 The Israelites have chosen to worship idols,
so leave them alone.
18 When they finish their drinking,
they completely give themselves to being prostitutes;
they love these disgraceful ways.
19 They will be swept away as if by a whirlwind,
and their sacrifices will bring them only shame.
God’s Word Against the Leaders
5 “Listen, you priests.
Pay attention, people of Israel.
Listen, royal family,
because you will all be judged.
You have been like a trap at Mizpah
and like a net spread out at Mount Tabor.
2 You have done many evil things,
so I will punish you all.
3 I know all about the people of Israel;
what they have done is not hidden from me.
Now that Israel acts like a prostitute,
it has made itself unclean.
4 “They will not give up their deeds
and return to their God.
They are determined to be unfaithful to me;
they do not know the Lord.
5 Israel’s pride testifies against them.
The people of Israel will stumble because of their sin,
and the people of Judah will stumble with them.
6 They will come to worship the Lord,
bringing their flocks and herds,
but they will not be able to find him,
because he has left them.
7 They have not been true to the Lord;
they are children who do not belong to him.
So their false worship
will destroy them and their land.
8 “Blow the horn in Gibeah
and the trumpet in Ramah.
Give the warning at Beth Aven,
and be first into battle, people of Benjamin.
9 Israel will be ruined
on the day of punishment.
To the tribes of Israel
I tell the truth.
10 The leaders of Judah are like those
who steal other people’s land.
I will pour my punishment over them
like a flood of water.
11 Israel is crushed by the punishment,
because it decided to follow idols.
12 I am like a moth to Israel,
like a rot to the people of Judah.
13 “When Israel saw its illness
and Judah saw its wounds,
Israel went to Assyria for help
and sent to the great king of Assyria.
But he cannot heal you
or cure your wounds.
14 I will be like a lion to Israel,
like a young lion to Judah.
I will attack them
and tear them to pieces.
I will drag them off,
and no one will be able to save them.
15 Then I will go back to my place
until they suffer for their guilt and turn back to me.
In their trouble they will look for me.”
The People Are Not Faithful
6 “Come, let’s go back to the Lord.
He has hurt us, but he will heal us.
He has wounded us, but he will bandage our wounds.
2 In two days he will put new life in us;
on the third day he will raise us up
so that we may live in his presence 3 and know him.
Let’s try to learn about the Lord;
he will come to us as surely as the dawn comes.
He will come to us like rain,
like the spring rain that waters the ground.”
4 The Lord says, “Israel, what should I do with you?
Judah, what should I do with you?
Your faithfulness is like a morning mist,
like the dew that goes away early in the day.
5 I have warned you by my prophets
that I will kill you and destroy you.
My justice comes out like bright light.
6 I want faithful love
more than I want animal sacrifices.
I want people to know me
more than I want burnt offerings.
7 But they have broken the agreement as Adam did;
they have been unfaithful to me.
8 Gilead is a city of people who do evil;
their footprints are bloody.
9 The priests are like robbers waiting to attack people;
they murder people on the road to Shechem[l]
and do wicked things.
10 I have seen horrible things in Israel.
Look at Israel’s prostitution;
Israel has become unclean.
11 “Judah, I have set a harvest time for you
when I will make the lives of my people good again.
7 When I heal Israel,
Israel’s sin will go away,
and so will Samaria’s evil.
“They cheat a lot!
Thieves break into houses,
and robbers are in the streets.
2 It never enters their minds
that I remember all their evil deeds.
The bad things they do are all around them;
they are right in front of me.
Israel’s Evil Kings
3 “They make the king happy with their wickedness;
their rulers are glad with their lies.
4 But all of them are traitors.
They are like an oven heated by a baker.
While he mixes the dough,
he does not need to stir up the fire.
5 The kings get so drunk they get sick every day.
The rulers become crazy with wine;
they make agreements with those who do not know the true God.
6 They burn like an oven;
their hearts burn inside them.
All night long their anger is low,
but when morning comes, it becomes a roaring fire.
7 All these people are as hot as an oven;
they burn up their rulers.
All their kings fall,
and no one calls on me.
Israel and the Other Nations
8 “Israel mixes with other nations;
he is like a pancake cooked only on one side.
9 Foreign nations have eaten up his strength,
but he doesn’t know it.
Israel is weak and feeble, like an old man,
but he doesn’t know it.
10 Israel’s pride will cause their defeat;
they will not turn back to the Lord their God
or look to him for help in all this.
11 Israel has become like a pigeon—
easy to fool and stupid.
First they call to Egypt for help.
Then they run to Assyria.
12 When they go, I will catch them in a net,
I will bring them down like birds from the sky;
I will punish them countless times for their evil.
13 How terrible for them because they left me!
They will be destroyed, because they turned against me.
I want to save them,
but they have spoken lies against me.
14 They do not call to me from their hearts.
They just lie on their beds and cry.
They come together to ask for grain and new wine,
but they really turn away from me.
15 Though I trained them and gave them strength,
they have made evil plans against me.
16 They did not turn to the Most High God.
They are like a loose bow that can’t shoot.
Because their leaders brag about their strength,
they will be killed with swords,
and the people in Egypt
will laugh at them.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.