1Say to your brothers, “My people,” and to your sisters, “She has been shown mercy.”
2Contend with your mother, contend! For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove her whorings from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts,
3lest I strip her naked and expose her as on the day she was born, and make her like the wilderness, and set her like a parched land, and slay her with thirst.
4And on her children I will have no mercy, for they are children of whorings,
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, behold, I am hedging up your way with thorns, and I will wall up her wall, so that she cannot find her paths.
7She will pursue her lovers but not overtake them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, “I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.”
8But she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil, and who lavished on her silver, and gold — which they used for the Baal.
9Therefore I will return and take back my grain in its time and my new wine in its season, and I will snatch away my wool and my flax, given to cover her nakedness.
10And now I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her from my hand.
11And I will put an end to all her rejoicing: her feast, her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her appointed festivals.
12And I will lay waste her vine and her fig tree, of which she said, “These are my hire, which my lovers gave me.” I will make them a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
13And I will visit upon her the days of the Baals, to whom she burned incense, when she adorned herself with her ring and her jewelry and went after her lovers, and forgot me — declares Yahweh.
14Therefore, behold, I am going to allure her and lead her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart.
15And from there I will give her her vineyards, and the Valley of Achor as a door of hope. And there she will respond as in the days of her youth, as on the day she came up from the land of Egypt.
16And it will be on that day — declares Yahweh — that 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 will no longer be remembered by their name.
18And I will cut a covenant for them on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground; and bow and sword and war I will break from the land, and I will make them lie down in safety.
19And I will betroth you to myself forever; I will betroth you to myself in righteousness and in justice, in loyal love and in compassion.
20And I will betroth you to myself in faithfulness, and you will know Yahweh.
21And it will be on that day that I will answer — declares Yahweh — I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth,
22and the earth will answer the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil, and they will answer Jezreel.
23And I will sow her for myself in the land, and I will have mercy on Lo-Ruhamah (“Not-shown-mercy”), and I will say to Lo-Ammi (“Not-my-people”), “You are my people,” and he will say, “My God.”
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