1‘People of Israel, call your brothers “My people.” And call your sisters “My loved ones.”
Israel is punished and brought back to the Lord
2‘Tell your mother she is wrong. Tell her she is wrong. She isn’t acting like a wife to me anymore. She no longer treats me as her husband. Tell her to stop looking and acting like a prostitute. Tell her not to let her lovers lie on her breasts anymore.3If she doesn’t stop it, I will strip her naked. I’ll make her as bare as she was on the day she was born. I’ll make her like a desert. She will become like dry land. And I’ll let her die of thirst.4‘I won’t show my love to her children. They are the children of other men.5Their mother hasn’t been faithful to me. She who became pregnant with them has brought shame on herself. She said, “I will chase after my lovers. They give me my food and water. They provide me with wool and linen. They give me olive oil and wine.”6So I will block her path with bushes that have thorns. I’ll build a wall around her. Then she can’t go to her lovers.7She will still chase after her lovers. But she won’t catch them. She’ll look for them. But she won’t find them. Then she’ll say, “I’ll go back to my husband. That’s where I was at first. I was better off then than I am now.”8She wouldn’t admit that I was the one who gave her everything she had. I provided her with corn, olive oil and fresh wine. I gave her plenty of silver and gold. But she used it to make statues of Baal.9‘So I will take away my corn when it gets ripe. I’ll take my fresh wine when it’s ready. I’ll take back my wool and my linen. I gave them to her to cover her naked body.10So now I’ll uncover her body. All her lovers will see it. No one can stop me from punishing her.11I will put a stop to the special times she celebrates. I’ll bring an end to the feasts she celebrates each year. I’ll stop her New Moon feasts and her Sabbath days. I’ll bring all her appointed feasts to an end.12I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees. She said they were her pay from her lovers. I’ll make them like clumps of bushes and weeds. Wild animals will eat them up.13Israel burned incense to the gods that were named Baal. I will punish her for all the times she did that. She decorated herself with rings and jewellery. Then she went after her lovers. But she forgot all about me,’ declares the LORD.14‘So now I am going to draw her back to me. I will lead her into the desert. There I will speak tenderly to her.15I will give her back her vineyards. I will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope for her. Then she will love me, as she did when she was young. She will love me just as she did when she came up out of Egypt.16‘A new day is coming,’ announces the LORD. ‘Israel will call me “my husband.” She will no longer call me “my master.”17She will no longer speak about the gods that are named Baal. She will not pray to them for help anymore.18At that time I will make a covenant for the good of my people. I will make it with the wild animals and the birds in the sky. It will also be made with the creatures that move along the ground. I will remove bows and swords and other weapons of war from the land. Then my people can lie down in safety.19I will make Israel my own. She will belong to me for ever. I will do to her what is right and fair. I will love her tenderly.20I will be faithful to her. And she will recognise me as the LORD.21‘So at that time I will answer her,’ announces the LORD. ‘I will command the skies to send rain on the earth.22Then the earth will produce corn, olive oil and fresh wine. And Israel will be called Jezreel. That’s because I will answer her prayers.23I will plant her in the land for myself. I will show my love to the one I called Not My Loved One. I will say, “You are my people” to those who were called Not My People. And they will say, “You are my God.” ’
Hosea 2
English Standard Version
Israel’s Unfaithfulness Punished
1[1] Say to your brothers, “You are my people,”[2] and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”[3] (Ho 1:6; Ho 1:9)2“Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; (Isa 50:1; Eze 16:25; Ho 4:12)3lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. (Eze 16:4; Eze 16:39; Eze 19:13; Ho 2:9)4Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. (Ho 1:2; Ho 1:6)5For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ (Jer 44:17; Ho 1:2; Ho 2:8; Ho 2:12)6Therefore I will hedge up her[4] way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. (Job 3:23; Job 19:8; La 3:7; La 3:9)7She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ (Isa 54:5; Lu 15:17)8And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. (De 7:13; Isa 1:3; Eze 16:17; Eze 16:19; Ho 2:20; Ho 13:2)9Therefore I will take back 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. (Ho 2:3; Joe 1:10)10Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. (La 1:8; Eze 16:37; Eze 23:29)11And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. (Isa 1:13; Jer 7:34; Ho 9:5; Am 8:5; Am 8:10)12And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them. (Isa 5:5; Ho 2:5; Ho 13:8; Mic 1:7)13And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord. (Isa 61:10; Eze 23:40; Ho 4:9; Ho 11:2; Ho 13:1)
The Lord’s Mercy on Israel
14“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. (Isa 40:2; Eze 20:35)15And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor[5] a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. (Jer 2:2; Eze 16:22; Eze 16:60; Ho 9:10; Ho 11:1)16“And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ (Ho 2:18; Ho 2:21)17For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. (Ex 23:13; Zep 1:4; Zec 13:2)18And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish[6] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. (Le 26:5; Job 5:23; Ps 46:9; Isa 2:4; Isa 9:5; Jer 23:6; Eze 34:25; Eze 39:9)19And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. (Jer 3:14; Eze 43:7; Ho 2:7; Ho 2:16; 2Co 11:2)20I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. (Jer 31:34; Ho 2:19; Joh 17:3)21“And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, (Ho 2:16; Zec 8:12)22and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel,[7] (Ho 1:4; Ho 1:11)23and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy,[8] and I will say to Not My People,[9] ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’” (Le 26:12; Jer 31:33; Eze 36:9; Ho 1:6; Ho 1:9; Ho 1:10; Ho 2:1; Zec 13:9; Ro 9:25; 1Pe 2:10)