Israel Is Punished and Brought Back to the LORD
2 I said to my children, "Talk things over with your mother. Talk to her. She isn't acting like a wife to me anymore. She no longer treats me as her husband. Tell her to stop looking and acting like a prostitute. Tell her not to let her lovers lie on her breasts anymore.
3
If she doesn't stop it, I will strip her naked. I'll make her as bare as she was on the day she was born. I'll make her like a desert. She will become like dry land. And I'll let her die of thirst."
4
I won't show my love to Gomer's children. They are the children of other men.
5
Their mother hasn't been faithful to me. She who became pregnant with them has brought shame on herself. She said, "I will chase after my lovers. They give me my food and water. They provide me with wool and linen. They give me olive oil and wine."
6
So I will block her path with bushes that have thorns. I'll build a wall around her. Then she can't go to her lovers.
7
She will still chase after her lovers. But she won't catch them. She'll look for them. But she won't find them. Then she'll say, "I'll go back to my husband. That's where I was at first. I was better off then than I am now."
8
She wouldn't admit that I was the one who gave her everything she had. I provided her with grain, olive oil and fresh wine. I gave her plenty of silver and gold. But she used it to make statues of Baal.
9
So I will take away my grain when it gets ripe. I'll take my fresh wine when it's ready. I'll take back my wool and my linen. I gave them to her to cover her naked body.
10
So now I'll uncover her body. All of her lovers will see it. No one can stop me from punishing her.
11
I will put a stop to the special times she celebrates. I'll bring an end to the feasts she celebrates each year. I'll stop her New Moon Feasts and her Sabbath days. I'll bring all of her appointed feasts to an end.
12
I will destroy her vines and her fig trees. She said they were her pay from her lovers. I'll make them like clumps of bushes and weeds. Wild animals will eat them up.