The Daily Audio Bible
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1 The words in this book are the words of the Eternal One, which were told to Hosea (Beeri’s son) when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah; and when Jeroboam (Joash’s son) was king of Israel.
2 This is the word the Eternal spoke through Hosea first.
Eternal One (to Hosea): Go and marry a woman who is a prostitute and have children who come from this unfaithfulness. This will represent how the land of Israel has abandoned Me and become a prostitute to other masters!
3 So Hosea married a woman named Gomer (Diblaim’s daughter). She became pregnant and gave birth to his son.
Eternal One: 4 I want you to name this boy Jezreel because I’m just about to punish Jehu’s dynasty for all the blood Jehu shed at the city of Jezreel.[a] I will bring an end to the monarchy in Israel. 5 Here’s how I’m going to do it: I’ll destroy their army and break their bow when they fight the Assyrians in the valley of Jezreel.
This judgment is for the crime of slaughtering Ahab’s family at the city of Jezreel by Jehu when he made himself king, and the punish ment includes Jehu’s great-grandson, King Jeroboam.
6 Gomer became pregnant again, and this time she had a girl.
Eternal One: I want you to name her Shown No Mercy,[b] because I’m not going to show any more mercy to the people of Israel. I won’t forgive them anymore. 7 But I will have mercy on the people of Judah. Even though they could never win in battle with their own weapons—bows and swords, horses and cavalry—I’m going to save them personally.
8 After Gomer finished nursing Shown No Mercy, she became pregnant again and had another boy.
Eternal One: 9 I want you to name him Not My People,[c] because these people aren’t Mine anymore, and I am not their God.
10 But things won’t always be this way. Someday there’ll be so many people in Israel that they’ll be like the grains of sand at the seashore—too many to count! It shall turn out that in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” they will be called “Children of the living God.”[d] 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will return from exile and gather together as one nation again, and they’ll agree on only one leader for all of them. It will be a great day when they go up from the land and “Jezreel” is a reality.
Jezreel means “God sows [seed].” He will bring the people back to their land, and they’ll never be uprooted again.
2 Eternal One (to the future reunited people): Give your brothers a new name: My People;
and give your sisters a new name too: Shown Mercy.
2 I’m going to publicly charge your mother, Israel, with being unfaithful to Me.
But you must bring the accusation against her—you bring it—
Because she’s not My wife anymore and I’m not her husband.
Israel was unfaithful to God by worshiping the fertility gods of her neighbors and forging diplomatic and military alliances with these foreign nations.
Look at her! She must cease from her whoring ways,
even her adulteries from her breasts; she must remove her lovers.
3 If she doesn’t stop, I’ll take away all her clothes and jewels
and leave her as naked as the day she was born.
I’ll make her like the bare rocks and soil of the desert
where nothing grows because there’s no rain:
I’ll kill her with thirst.
4 When I divorce her, I won’t take care of her children
because they are children of wickedness, tainted by that very prostitution.
Whenever God’s children abandon proper worship of Him in favor of any earthly thing—be it worship of another god, dependence on themselves, or trust in foreign leaders—they break their covenant with Him. Breaking that promise is like committing adultery, which is literally the destruction of a marriage covenant. Here, God is furious with Israel because they have chosen to serve the gods of other nations in addition to Him; they are committing adultery against Him.
Under the rule of King Jeroboam II in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, worship of a Canaanite deity named Baal is common. Many people believe he is the god of weather and therefore the one who makes the earth fertile and produces crops. Like God, he is worshiped through the donation of gifts and sacrificing of animals, but Baal is also honored by the activities of prostitutes at shrines dedicated to him. The men and women who are employed at those shrines are paid for their fertility rituals by customers (worshipers) not only with money but also with the produce of the land their sexual activities supposedly fertilized: bread and water, wool and flax, oil and wine.
5 Their mother was a prostitute;
she brought shame on herself when she had these children.
She chased her customers, saying, “I’m going to go looking for my lovers.
They’re the ones who give me my bread and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and wine.”
6 But I’ll block her way with a thorn hedge;
I’ll put a wall up around her, blocking her usual paths,
7 and she will wander after her lovers like a dumb sheep.
She’ll chase after them, but she won’t catch them.
She’ll look for them, but she won’t find them.
Then she’ll say, “I’m going to go back to my original husband
because I was better off then than I am now!”
8 She didn’t know I was the One who gave her the grain and wine and oil—
not those fertility gods she was worshiping.
I made her rich with silver and gold,
but she devoted it to another divine master![e]
9 So when harvest time comes, I’ll take back My grain,
and when the grapes ripen, I’ll take back My wine.
I’ll take away the wool and flax I gave her to make clothes
so she wouldn’t be naked.
10 The land will be stripped bare,
and this unfaithful wife of Mine will be walking around
Embarrassingly naked in the sight of her lovers,
and none of them will be able to rescue her from Me.
11 So I’m going to end all of her celebrations
now that she uses them to honor other masters—
Her pilgrimage festivals, her new moon celebrations, her Sabbath feasts,
and all her other gatherings.
12 She says she’s entitled to her vines and fig trees
because they’re her wages from prostitution; they’re gifts from her lovers.
But I’m going to destroy them all. I’ll turn them into a tangle of brush,
and wild animals will eat up the fruit.
13 I swear that I’ll punish her for honoring other masters[f] on My special days,
even her burning incense to those false gods.
She got dressed up in her rings and jewelry;
she went after her lovers, and she forgot about Me.
14 But once she has nothing, I’ll be able to get through to her.
I’ll entice her and lead her out into the wilderness where we can be alone,
and I’ll speak right to her heart and try to win her back.
15 And then I’ll give her back her vineyards;
I’ll turn the valley of Achor, that “Valley of Trouble,”[g]
into a gateway of hope.
This is where Achan was judged for keeping forbidden spoils of war when Israel first entered into the land after the exodus.
In the wilderness of exile she’ll learn to respond to Me
the way she did when she was young, when I brought her out of Egypt.
16 And I swear when that day comes, she’ll call Me “my husband” and never address Me again as “my master” as she did those other gods. 17 She’ll never invoke the name of any other master again.
Everyone will forget that gods by that name ever existed. 18 When that day comes, this is what I’ll do for My people: I’ll make a covenant for them with the wild animals and flying birds and crawling insects, and they’ll agree never to devour her crops again. I’ll smash all the bows and swords and weapons that could be used to invade their land, and they’ll live in security.
(to His reclaimed bride) 19 I’m going to marry you, and this time it’ll be forever in righteousness and justice. Our covenant will reflect a loyal love and great mercy; 20 our marriage will be honest and truthful, and you’ll understand who I really am—the Eternal One.
21 And I swear that when that day comes
I’ll answer the sky and prayers for rain,
and the sky will give the land the water it’s asking for.
22 And the land will give the grain and wine and oil the fertile soil they need to develop,
and the crops will shout back to Me, “God sows!”[h]
23 I won’t just restore the agricultural abundance;
I’ll sow into My beloved land and plant the people in the land and make them My own.
To the one who has not been shown mercy,[i]
I’ll rename her Mercy.
I’ll tell Not My People,[j] “You are now My People!”
and he’ll respond, “You’re my God!”[k]
3 The Eternal spoke with me again.
Eternal One: Go and love a woman who is loved by someone else and is adulterous. Care for her and protect her, just as I love the people of Israel even though they’re unfaithfully turning to other gods and selfishly eating sacred raisin cakes in their honor.
2 So I paid the bride-price for this woman, less than I would pay to own a slave: six ounces of silver, about ten bushels of barley.
Hosea (to the woman): 3 You’re going to live with me for a long time. I didn’t buy you just for my own pleasure, and I’m not going to cast you aside. But I’m not going to let you commit adultery again—in fact, you’re not going to have sexual relations with anyone, not even me.
4 In the same way, the people of Israel will go for a long time without having a king or prince of their own, without having any altars or sacred pillars, and without having any way of divining answers through a vestment[l] or images. 5 And afterward, once their devotion is renewed, they’ll return and genuinely worship the Eternal their God, and they’ll end their rebellion against the royal house of David. In those days they’ll come trembling to the Eternal One and rediscover His goodness.
It’s easy to say “I love God,” but genuine love reflects God’s love. If we belong to God, then we will love each other regardless of how hard love is.
5 Everyone who trusts Jesus as the long-awaited Anointed One is a child of God, and everyone who loves the Father cannot help but love the child fathered by Him. 2 Then how do we know if we truly love God’s children? We love them if we love God and keep His commands. 3 You see, to love God means that we keep His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down. 4 Everything that has been fathered by God overcomes the corrupt world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
5-6 Who is the person conquering the world? It is the one who truly trusts that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus the Anointed is the One who came by water and blood—not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.
Just as we do not get to choose our biological brothers and sisters, we do not get to choose our spiritual brothers and sisters either. But what comes along with loving the Father is loving all His other children—even the really annoying ones! While it might seem to be easier to go off and live in isolation rather than put up with those we are not naturally attracted to, there are responsibilities that come with living in a spiritual family. We reflect our worship of God by living in respect with our Christian brothers and sisters. How we treat the people around us on a daily basis is the real test of our love for God.
The Spirit of God testifies to this truth because the Spirit is the truth. 7 So there are three testifying witnesses: 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood. All three are in total agreement. 9 If we accept the testimonies of people, then we must realize the testimony of God is greater than that of any person. God certified the truth about His own Son. 10 Anyone who trusts the Son of God has this truthful testimony at the core of his being. Anyone who does not trust God calls God a liar because he ignores God’s truthful testimony regarding His own Son. 11 And this is the truth: God has given us the gift of eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 If you have the Son, you have eternal life. If you do not have the Son of God, you are not acquainted with true life.
13 I am writing all of this to you who have entrusted your lives to the Son of God—so you will realize eternal life already is yours. 14 We live in the bold confidence that God hears our voices when we ask for things that fit His plan. 15 And if we have no doubt that He hears our voices, we can be assured that He moves in response to our call.
16 In this regard, if you notice a brother or sister in faith making moral missteps and blunders, disregarding and disobeying God even to the point of God removing this one from the body by death, then pray for that person; and God will grant him life on this journey. But to be clear, there is a sin that is ultimately fatal and leads to death. I am not talking about praying for that fatal sin, 17 but I am talking about all those wrongs and sins that plague God’s family that don’t lead to death.
18 We all know that everyone fathered by God will not make sin a way of life because God protects His children from the evil one, and the evil one can’t touch them. 19 Have confidence in the fact that we belong to God, but also know that the world around us is in the grips of the evil one. 20 We also can be sure of the fact that the Son of God has come and given us a mind so that we may know Him as the embodiment of all that is true. We live in this truth, in His Son Jesus, the Anointed One. He is the True God and eternal life.
21 My little children, keep away from idols.
John’s final bit of pastoral advice sounds an alarm against idolatry. If we look carefully at our culture and into our own hearts, we will find we are ultimately concerned about ourselves, our entertainment, our comforts, and our wallets. None of these are worthy of our highest devotion; but we put more time, energy, money, and emotion into these than we do into the one true God. So John’s warning should be heeded: watch out for the steady impulse to love other things more than God.
Psalm 124
A song of David for those journeying to worship.
1 If the Eternal had not been with us—
sing, Israel, sing—
2 If He had not been with us
when the villains came for us,
3 When their anger flamed around us,
they would have swallowed us up alive!
4 Their hatred was like a flood:
the waters were rising and would have engulfed us;
the streams were rushing past and would have overcome us.
5 The furious waters would have broken over us.
Battered and overwhelmed, we surely would have drowned!
6 Blessed be the Eternal
who did not leave us
to be torn by their fangs!
7 Our souls cry out: “We escaped with our lives like a bird
from the fowler’s snare!
The snare was broken,
and we escaped with our lives!”
8 Our help has come in the name of the Eternal,
the Maker of heaven and earth!
5 The one who flatters his friend
is laying a trap that will catch his friend’s feet.
6 An evil person is sure to be trapped by his sin,
but a man who lives right is free to sing and be glad.
7 The just get involved with the poor and know their issues,
but the wicked cannot comprehend such concerns.
8 Mockers stir up a city and inflame passions,
but the wise know how to put out the fire and ease tensions.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.