1 Call F your brothers: My People
and your sisters: Compassion.
Israel’s Adultery Rebuked
2 Rebuke your mother; rebuke her. v
For she is not my wife and I am not her husband. w
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face x
and her adultery from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked y
and expose her as she was on the day of her birth.
I will make her like a desert z
and like a parched land,
and I will let her die of thirst. a
4 I will have no compassion on her children b
because they are the children of promiscuity.
5 Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully. c
For she thought, “I will follow my lovers, d
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.” e
6 Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her G way f with thorns; g
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths. h
7 She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; i
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband, j
for then it was better for me than now.” k
8 She does not recognize l
that it is I who gave her the grain, m
the new wine, and the fresh oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.
9 Therefore, I will take back my grain in its time n
and my new wine in its season;
I will take away my wool and linen,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will expose her shame o
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from my power.
11 I will put an end to all her celebrations: p
her feasts, q New Moons, r and Sabbaths—
all her festivals.
12 I will devastate her vines and fig trees. s
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket, t
and the wild animals will eat them. u
13 And I will punish her for the days of the Baals, v
to which she burned incense. w
She put on her rings and her jewelry x
and followed her lovers,
but she forgot me. y
This is the LORD’S declaration.
Israel’s Adultery Forgiven
14 Therefore, I am going to persuade her,
lead her to the wilderness, z
and speak tenderly to her. H
15 There I will give her vineyards back to her a
and make the Valley of Achor I,b
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth, c
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 In that day—
this is the LORD’S declaration—
you will call me, “My husband,” d
and no longer call me, “My Baal.” J
17 For I will remove the names of the Baals
from her mouth;
they will no longer be remembered by their names.
18 On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground. e
I will shatter bow, sword,
and weapons of war in the land K,f
and will enable the people to rest securely. g
19 I will take you to be my wife forever. h
I will take you to be my wife in righteousness,
justice, love, and compassion. i
20 I will take you to be my wife in faithfulness,
and you will know the LORD. j
21 On that day I will respond k—
this is the LORD’S declaration.
I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.
22 The earth will respond to the grain, l
the new wine, and the fresh oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will sow her L in the land for myself, m
and I will have compassion n
on Lo-ruhamah;
I will say to Lo-ammi: o
You are my people, p
and he will say, “You are my God.”