Hosea 2

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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Children of the living God

¹Yet the number of the people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which no one can measure or count. In the very place where they were told, “You are not my people,” they will be told, “You are children of the living God.” ²The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together. They will appoint one leader for themselves and will go up out of the land, for the day of Jezreel will be great. ³Say to your brothers, “My People,” \q and to your sisters, “Shown Compassion.” ⁴Bring a charge against your mother, bring a charge, \q because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. \q She must put away her prostitution from her face \q and her adultery from between her breasts, ⁵or I will strip her naked \q and leave her as bare as on the day she was born. \q I will make her like a wilderness, turn her into a parched land, \q and let her die of thirst. ⁶I will not show compassion to her children, \q because they are children born of promiscuity. ⁷Their mother has prostituted herself; \q she who conceived them has behaved shamefully. \q For she said, “I will follow my lovers, who give me my food and water, \q my wool and flax, \q my oil and drink.” ⁸Therefore I will block your way with thorns, \q and I will wall her in, \q so that she cannot find her paths. ⁹She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; \q she will look for them but not find them. \q Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, \q for I was better off then than now.” ¹⁰She did not acknowledge \q that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil, \q and who lavished on her the silver and gold that they used for Baal. ¹¹So I will take back my grain at harvest time \q and my new wine in its season. \q I will snatch away my wool and my flax, \q which were to cover her nakedness. ¹²Now I will lay bare her lewdness before her lovers’ eyes, \q and no one will rescue her from my hand. ¹³I will put an end to all her celebrations, \q her festivals, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, \q and all her appointed feasts. ¹⁴I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, \q of which she said, “These are my pay, which my lovers gave me.” \q I will turn them into a thicket, \q and the wild animals will eat them up. ¹⁵I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals, when she burned offerings to them, \q put on her rings and her jewelry, \q and went after her lovers, \q but forgot me, declares the LORD.

Led back into the wilderness

¹⁶Therefore I am going to woo her; \q I will lead her into the wilderness \q and speak tenderly to her. ¹⁷There I will give her back her vineyards \q and make the valley of Achor a door of hope. \q There she will respond as in the days of her youth, \q as on the day she came up from the land of Egypt.

¹⁸On that day, declares the LORD, you will call me “My husband”; \q you will no longer call me “My Baal.” ¹⁹I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, \q and they will no longer be invoked by name. ²⁰On that day I will make a covenant on their behalf \q with the wild animals and the birds of the sky \q and the creatures that move along the ground. \q I will break bow and sword and battle and remove them from the land, \q and I will let them lie down in safety. ²¹I will betroth you to me forever. \q I will betroth you to me with righteousness and justice, \q with loyal love and compassion. ²²I will betroth you to me with faithfulness, \q and you will know the LORD.

²³On that day I will answer, declares the LORD. \q I will answer the heavens, \q and they will answer the earth. ²⁴The earth will answer the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil, \q and they will answer Jezreel. ²⁵I will sow her for myself in the land. \q I will have compassion on No Compassion, \q and I will say to Not My People, “You are my people,” \q and he will say, “You are my God.”