Hosea 2

₁‘You must say to your brothers:

“You are my people,”

and to your sisters you must say:

“The Lord will be good to you again.” ’

₂The Lord said: ‘Your mother is Israel.

You must tell your mother that she has done wrong,

because she is not my wife anymore

and I am not her husband anymore.

She must stop being unfaithful

and stop committing_adultery.

₃If she does not stop doing that,

I will take off all her clothes

and she will be naked

like she was on the day when she was born.

I will make her like a desert

where no water is and she will die

because she will not have water to drink.

₄I will not show love to her children

because they were born of adultery.

₅Their mother has been unfaithful.

She has done bad things and she said:

“I love my lovers and I will serve them.

They give me bread and water,

wool and flax, olive oil and wine.”

₆That is why I will put

branches with thorns in her way,

and I, the Lord,

will build a stone wall around her.

I will close her in

so that she can not find her way.

₇She will try to go to her lovers

but she will not find them.

She will look for them but she will not find them.

Then she will say:

“I will go back to my Husband,

because when I served Him,

it was better for me than it is now.”

₈Yes, she did not want to believe

that it was I who gave her

wheat and wine and olive oil,

and a lot of silver and gold.

But she took that silver and gold

and she made an image of Baal.

₉That is why I will now

take back my wheat and my wine.

There will be no wheat to cut

or grapes to make wine.

I will also take back my wool and my flax

that I gave her to cover her naked body.

₁₀Now I will take off her clothes

and her lovers will see that she is naked,

but they will not be able to save her.

₁₁She will not be happy again

or rejoice about anything.

There will never again be

Feasts_of_shelters, New-moon-feasts,

Sabbath days or other feasts.

₁₂I will destroy her vineyards and her fig trees.

They will become like a wild forest

and the animals will eat the trees.

She said: “These are gifts

that my lovers have given me.”

₁₃I will punish her, because she often

gave offerings to the Baal idols.

The Israelites are like bad women

who make themselves beautiful

with rings and jewellery

and walk outside looking for other men.

But they forgot about Me.’

₁₄The Lord said: ‘I will call her.

I will keep on talking to her

until she wants to become my wife again.

I will take her back to the desert

and I will speak to her in a soft way

so that she will be pleased.

₁₅I will give her vineyards again

and she will wait in the Achor Valley

to go into the land.

She will again say things that she said

at the time when she was young,

when she came out of Egypt.’

‘On that day you will say:

“Lord, You are my Husband.”

You will no longer say:

“You are my Baal.”

₁₇I will take away the names

of the Baal idols out of her mouth.

She will not talk about the Baals again.

₁₈On that day I will help her to make

an agreement with the animals and birds and

all the small animals that crawl on the ground.

There will be no more war in the land.

I will make sure that you live safely.’

‘I will make you my bride.

You will always be mine.

I will be faithful to you

like a man who takes a bride

and then the bride is his wife forever.

I will make you mine forever.

I will make you righteous

and show you my mercy.

I will be good to you.

₂₀I will be true to you

as I promised you

when you became my bride.

You will always want to serve Me.

You will always want to be near the Lord.’

‘On that day I will talk.

I will talk to the sky,

and the sky will talk to the earth

₂₂and the earth will talk

to the wheat and wine and olive oil

and they will all talk to the people of the town of Jezreel.

₂₃I will make the people of Jezreel like seed.

I will sow them in all the places on the earth.

I will be good to Lo-Ruhamah again

and I will love her again.

I will say to Lo-Ammi: “You are my people”

and they will say: “Lord, You are our God.” ’