The Message Bible MSG
King James Version KJV
1 Rename your brothers 'God's Somebody.' Rename your sisters 'All Mercy.' Wild Weekends and Unholy Holidays
1
Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
2 "Haul your mother into court. Accuse her! She's no longer my wife. I'm no longer her husband. Tell her to quit dressing like a whore, displaying her breasts for sale.
2
Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
3 If she refuses, I'll rip off her clothes and expose her, naked as a newborn. I'll turn her skin into dried-out leather, her body into a badlands landscape, a rack of bones in the desert.
3
Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
4 I'll have nothing to do with her children, born one and all in a whorehouse.
4
And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.
5 Face it: Your mother's been a whore, bringing bastard children into the world. She said, 'I'm off to see my lovers! They'll wine and dine me, Dress and caress me, perfume and adorn me!'
5
For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
6 But I'll fix her: I'll dump her in a field of thistles, then lose her in a dead-end alley.
6
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
7 She'll go on the hunt for her lovers but not bring down a single one. She'll look high and low but won't find a one. Then she'll say, 'I'm going back to my husband, the one I started out with. That was a better life by far than this one.'
7
And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
8 She didn't know that it was I all along who wined and dined and adorned her, That I was the one who dressed her up in the big-city fashions and jewelry that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies.
8
For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.
9 I'm about to bring her up short: No more wining and dining! Silk lingerie and gowns are a thing of the past.
9
Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
10 I'll expose her genitals to the public. All her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her.
10
And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.
11 Party time is over. I'm calling a halt to the whole business, her wild weekends and unholy holidays.
11
I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
12 I'll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains, of which she bragged, 'Whoring paid for all this!' They will soon be dumping grounds for garbage, feeding grounds for stray dogs and cats.
12
And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13 I'll make her pay for her indulgence in promiscuous religion - all that sensuous Baal worship And all the promiscuous sex that went with it, stalking her lovers, dressed to kill, And not a thought for me." God's Message! To Start All Over Again
13
And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.
14 "And now, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to start all over again. I'm taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and I'll court her.
14
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
15 I'll give her bouquets of roses. I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope. She'll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.
15
And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16 "At that time" - this is God's Message still - "you'll address me, 'Dear husband!' Never again will you address me, 'My slave-master!'
16
And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.
17 I'll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false-god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again.
17
For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
18 At the same time I'll make a peace treaty between you and wild animals and birds and reptiles, And get rid of all weapons of war. Think of it! Safe from beasts and bullies!
18
And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
19 And then I'll marry you for good - forever! I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.
19
And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.
20 Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go. You'll know me, God, for who I really am.
20
I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.
21 "On the very same day, I'll answer" - this is God's Message - "I'll answer the sky, sky will answer earth,
21
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;
22 Earth will answer grain and wine and olive oil, and they'll all answer Jezreel.
22
And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.
23 I'll plant her in the good earth. I'll have mercy on No-Mercy. I'll say to Nobody, 'You're my dear Somebody,' and he'll say 'You're my God!'"
23
And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
The King James Version is in the public domain.