2
"Plead with your mother, plead-- for
1she is not my wife, and I am not her husband-- that she put away
2her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;
3
lest
3I strip her naked and make her as
4in the day she was born, and
5make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.
4
6Upon her children also I will have no mercy,
7because they are children of whoredom.
5
For
8their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For
9she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who
10give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'
6
Therefore
11I will hedge up her way with thorns, and
12I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.
7
She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them.
13Then she shall say, 'I will go and return to
14my first husband,
15for it was better for me then than now.'
8
And
16she did not know that it was
17I who gave her
18the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on
19her silver and gold,
20which they used for Baal.
9
Therefore
21I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and
22I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.
10
Now
23I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
11
24And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her
25new moons, her
26Sabbaths, and all her
27appointed feasts.
12
And
28I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
29of which she said, 'These are
30my wages, which my lovers have given me.' I will make them a forest,
31and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
13
And
32I will punish her for
33the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and
34adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the LORD.
The Lord's Mercy on Israel
14 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and
35bring her into the wilderness, and
36speak tenderly to her.
15
And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer
37as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
16
"And
38in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me 'My Husband,' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal.'
17
For
39I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.
18
And
40I 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
41I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in
42safety.
19
And I will betroth you to me
43forever.
44I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
20
45I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And
46you shall know the LORD.
21
"And
47in that day
48I will answer, declares the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth,
22
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer
49Jezreel,
23
and
50I will sow her for myself in the land. And
51I
52will have mercy on No Mercy, and
53I will say to Not My People,
54'You are my people'; and he shall say, 'You are my God.'"