Chronological

1 ¶ The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

² ¶ The beginning of the word of the LORD with Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land shall give itself over to whoredom by departing from the LORD.

³ So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, who conceived and bore him a son.

⁴ And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

⁵ And it shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

⁶ And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah: for I will never again have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly forget them.

⁷ But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah and will save them in the LORD their God and will not save them by bow, by sword, by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

⁸ ¶ And after she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived and bore a son.

⁹ Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

¹⁰ With all this, the number of the sons of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

¹¹ And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be congregated together, and they shall raise up for themselves one head, and they shall rise up from the land: for the day of Jezreel is great.

2 ¶ Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

² Contend with your mother, contend: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore remove her whoredoms from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts;

³ lest I strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was born and make her as a wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst.

⁴ Neither will I have mercy upon her sons, for they are the sons of whoredoms.

⁵ For their mother has played the harlot; she that conceived them has been shamed; for she said, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

⁶ ¶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find her paths.

⁷ And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them; then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.

⁸ For she did not recognize that I gave her the wheat and the wine and the oil and multiplied unto them the silver and the gold, with which they made Baal.

⁹ Therefore I will return and take away my wheat in the time thereof and my wine in the season thereof and will recover my wool and my flax that I had given to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now I will uncover her folly in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹ I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast, her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her festivities.

¹² And I will cause her vine and her fig tree to be cut down, of which she has said, These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will reduce them to a thicket, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

¹³ And I will visit upon her the times of the Baals, unto whom she burned incense, and she adorned herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, oblivious of me, saith the LORD.

¹⁴ ¶ Therefore, behold, I will induce her and bring her into the wilderness and speak unto her heart.

¹⁵ And I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ And it shall be in that time, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me My Husband, and shalt no longer call me Baali.

¹⁷ For I will take away the names of Baals out of her mouth, and they shall no longer be remembered by their name.

¹⁸ And in that time I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of the heaven and with the serpents of the earth; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle of the earth and will cause them to sleep safely.

¹⁹ And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in mercy.

²⁰ I will even betroth thee unto me in faith: and thou shalt know the LORD.

²¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, I will respond, saith the LORD, I will respond to the heavens, and they shall respond to the earth;

²² and the earth shall respond to the wheat and the wine and the oil; and they shall respond to Jezreel.

²³ And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon Loruhamah, {her that had not obtained mercy} and I will say to Loammi, {those who were not my people} Thou art my people; and he shall say, Thou art my God.

3 ¶ Then the LORD said unto me again, Go, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the sons of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine.

² So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and an homer and a half of barley:

³ and I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.

⁴ For the sons of Israel shall abide many days without king and without Lord and without sacrifice and without image, and without ephod and without teraphim;

⁵ afterward the sons of Israel shall return, and they shall seek the LORD their God and David their king; and they shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the end of the days.

4 ¶ Hear the word of the LORD, ye sons of Israel; for the LORD contends with the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the earth.

² By swearing and lying and murdering and stealing and committing adultery, they prevailed, and blood touches blood.

³ Therefore the earth shall mourn, and every one that dwells therein shall be cut off, with the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven; and even the fishes of the sea shall be caught.

⁴ Certainly man does not contend with nor reprehend man; for thy people are as those that resist the priest.

⁵ Therefore thou shalt fall in the day, and the prophet shall also fall with thee by night, and I will cut off thy mother.

⁶ ¶ My people were cut off because they lacked wisdom; because thou hast rejected wisdom, I will cast thee out of the priesthood; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy sons.

⁷ According to their greatness, so did they sin against me; therefore I will change their honour into shame.

⁸ They eat up the sin of my people, and in their iniquity they raise up their soul.

⁹ The people shall become like the priest; and I will visit his ways upon him, and they shall reward him according to his doings.

¹⁰ For they shall eat and not be satisfied; they shall commit whoredom and shall not increase because they have quit showing hospitality unto the LORD.

¹¹ Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

¹² ¶ My people ask counsel of their wooden idol, and their stick declares unto them; for the spirit of whoredoms has caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring under their gods.

¹³ They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, that had good shade; therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law shall commit adultery.

¹⁴ I will not visit upon your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor upon your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery: for they offer with whores, and they sacrifice with cult prostitutes; therefore the people without understanding shall fall.

¹⁵ Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah be guilty; and do not come unto Gilgal, neither go up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD lives,

¹⁶ for Israel has turned away as a wild heifer; shall the LORD now feed them as rams in a large place?

¹⁷ Ephraim is given over to idols; leave him.

¹⁸ Their drink has become corrupted; they have committed whoredom continually; her princes love gifts, shamefully.

¹⁹ The wind has bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

5 ¶ Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ear, O house of the king because the judgment is for you, for ye have been a snare in Mizpah and a net spread over Tabor.

² And in killing sacrifices ye have descended into the depths; therefore, I shall be the correction of them all.

³ I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me; for now, O Ephraim, thou dost commit whoredom, and Israel is defiled.

⁴ They will not think about returning unto their God; for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they do not know the LORD.

⁵ And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face: therefore Israel and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity; Judah shall also fall with them.

⁶ They shall go with their flocks and with their herds seeking the LORD; but they shall not find him; he has withdrawn himself from them.

⁷ They have rebelled against the LORD; for they have begotten strange sons; now a month shall devour them with their portions.

⁸ ¶ Blow ye the shofar in Gibeah and the trumpet in Ramah; sound the drum in Bethaven; after thee, O Benjamin.

⁹ Ephraim shall be made desolate in the day of chastisement; in the tribes of Israel I made known my truth.

¹⁰ The princes of Judah were like those that move the boundaries; therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.

¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment because he wanted to walk after commandments.

¹² Therefore I will be unto Ephraim as a moth and to the house of Judah as rottenness.

¹³ And Ephraim shall see his sickness and Judah his wound; then Ephraim shall go to the Assyrian and shall send to King Jareb; yet he shall not be able to heal you, nor cure you of your wound.

¹⁴ For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and there shall be no one left to escape.

¹⁵ I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face; in their affliction they will seek me early.

6 ¶ Come, and let us return unto the LORD; for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up.

² After two days he shall give us life: in the third day he will resurrect us, and we shall live in his sight.

³ And we shall know and follow on in knowing the LORD; his going forth is prepared as the dawn; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

⁴ ¶ O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? Your mercy is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away.

⁵ Therefore I have hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: that thy righteousness be as the light that goes forth.

⁶ For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

⁷ But they have transposed the covenant as of men: there they have rebelled against me.

⁸ Gilead is a city of those that work iniquity and is polluted with blood.

⁹ And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the council of priests murder in the way by common accord; for they put the abomination into effect.

¹⁰ I saw uncleanness in the house of Israel: there Ephraim played the harlot, Israel defiled herself.

¹¹ Also, Judah placed a plant in thee when I had turned the captivity of my people.

7 ¶ When I was healing Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they worked deceit; and the thief comes in, and the troop of robbers spoils without.

² And they do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.

³ They make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes with their lies.

⁴ They are all adulterers as an oven heated by the baker who shall cease from waking after he has kneaded the dough until it is leavened.

⁵ In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with a wineskin; he stretched out his hand with the scorners.

⁶ For they have made ready their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; their baker sleeps all night; in the morning it burns as a flaming fire.

⁷ They are all hot as an oven and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen; there is no one among them that calls unto me.

⁸ ¶ Ephraim, he has mixed himself among the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.

⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength, and he does not know it; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he does not understand.

¹⁰ And the pride of Israel shall testify to his face, and they have not returned to the LORD their God, nor have they sought him with all this.

¹¹ Ephraim also was like a deceived dove, without understanding; they shall call to Egypt, they shall go to Assyria.

¹² When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them according to what has been heard in their congregations.

¹³ Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction upon them! because they have rebelled against me; though I have ransomed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

¹⁴ And they have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds; they congregated themselves for the wheat and the wine, and they rebelled against me.

¹⁵ Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet they imagine evil against me.

¹⁶ They returned, but not to the most High; they were like a deceitful bow; their princes fell by the sword for the arrogance of their tongue; this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.