Hosea 2:1-23

  • Unfaithful Israel punished (1-13)

  • Restoration to Jehovah as husband (14-23)

    • “You will call me My husband” (16)

2  “Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’*+ And to your sisters, ‘O woman shown mercy!’*+   Accuse your mother; accuse her,For she is not my wife+ and I am not her husband. She should remove her prostitution* from herselfAnd her adultery from between her breasts,   Or I will strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born,Making her like a wilderness,Reducing her to a waterless land,And causing her to die of thirst.   And to her sons I will not show mercy,For they are the sons of prostitution.*   For their mother has committed prostitution.*+ She who was pregnant with them has acted shamefully,+ for she said,‘I will go after my passionate lovers,+Those who give me my bread and my water,My wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’   So I will block your way with a hedge of thorns;And I will raise up a stone wall against her,So that she cannot find her paths.   She will chase after her passionate lovers, but she will not overtake them;+She will look for them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband,+For I was better off at that time than I am now.’+   She did not recognize that it was I who had given her the grain,+ the new wine, and the oil,And I who had given her silver in abundanceAnd gold, which they used for Baʹal.+   ‘Therefore, I will return and take away my grain in its timeAnd my new wine in its season,+And I will snatch away my wool and my linen that were to cover her nakedness. 10  Now I will expose her private parts in full view of her passionate lovers,And no man will rescue her out of my hand.+ 11  I will put an end to all her joy,Her festivals,+ her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her festive seasons. 12  And I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said: “These are my wages, which my passionate lovers gave to me”;I will turn them into a forest,And the wild animals of the field will devour them. 13  I will hold an accounting against her for the days when she offered sacrifices to the Baʹal images,+When she would adorn herself with her rings and ornaments and would chase after her passionate lovers,And I was the one she forgot,’+ declares Jehovah. 14  ‘So I will persuade her,I will lead her into the wilderness,And I will speak to win her heart. 15  I will give her vineyards back to her from that time onward,+And the Valley* of Aʹchor+ as a gateway to hope;She will answer there as in the days of her youth,As in the day when she came out of the land of Egypt.+ 16  And in that day,’ declares Jehovah,‘You will call me My husband, and you will no longer call me My master.’* 17  ‘I will remove the names of the Baʹal images from her mouth,+And they will no longer be remembered by their name.+ 18  In that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals of the field,+And with the birds of the heavens and the creeping things of the ground;+I will rid the land of the bow and the sword and war,+And I will make them lie down* in security.+ 19  I will engage myself to you forever;And I will engage myself to you in righteousness and in justice,In loyal love and in mercy.+ 20  I will engage myself to you in faithfulness,And you will certainly know Jehovah.’+ 21  ‘In that day I will answer,’ declares Jehovah,‘I will answer the heavens,And they will answer the earth;+ 22  And the earth will answer the grain and the new wine and the oil;And they will answer Jezʹre·el.*+ 23  I will sow her like seed for myself in the earth,+And I will show mercy to her who was not shown mercy;*I will say to those not my people:* “You are my people,”+ And they will say: “You are my God.”’”+

Footnotes

See Ho 1:9 ftn.
See Ho 1:6 ftn.
Or “immorality; promiscuity.”
Or “immorality; promiscuity.”
Or “engaged in immorality (promiscuity).”
Or “Low Plain.”
Or “My Baal.”
Or “let them live.”
Meaning “God Will Sow Seed.”
See Ho 1:6 ftn.
See Ho 1:9 ftn.