Hosea 2

¹Say to your brothers , You are my people , and to your sisters , You have received mercy .

²Plead 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 ;

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 .

⁴Upon her children also I will have no mercy , because they are children of whoredom .

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 .

⁶Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns , and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths .

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 .

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 .

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 .

¹⁰Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers , and no one shall rescue her out of my hand .

¹¹And I will put an end to all her mirth , her feasts , her new moons , her Sabbaths , and all her appointed feasts .

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.

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.

¹⁴Therefore , behold , I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness , and speak tenderly to her.

¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor 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 .

¹⁶And in that day , declares the Lord, you will call me My Husband , and no longer will you call me My Baal .

¹⁷For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth , and they shall be remembered by name no more .

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 the bow , the sword , and war from the land , and I will make you lie down in safety .

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 .

²⁰I will betroth you to me in faithfulness . And you shall know the Lord.

²¹And in that day I will answer , declares the Lord, I will answer the heavens , and they shall answer the earth ,

²²and the earth shall answer the grain , the wine , and the oil , and they shall answer Jezreel ,

²³and I will sow her for myself in the land . And I will have mercy on No Mercy , and I will say to Not My People , You are my people ; and he shall say , You are my God .