Hosea 2:2-12

2 "Plead with your mother; plead with her. She no longer acts like my wife. She no longer treats me like her husband. Tell her to stop acting like a prostitute. Tell her to remove the lovers from between her breasts.

3 If she refuses, I will strip her. I will leave her as naked as the day she was born. I will turn her into a dry and barren land, and she will die of thirst.

4 I won't love her children, because they are children of a prostitute.

5 Their mother acted like a prostitute. The woman who became pregnant with them did shameful things. She said, 'I'll chase after my lovers. They will give me food and water, wool and linen, olive oil and wine.'

6 "That is why I will block her way with thornbushes and build a wall so that she can't get through.

7 She will run after her lovers, but she won't catch them. She will search for them, but she won't find them. Then she will say, 'I'll go back to my first husband. Things were better for me than they are now.'

8 "She doesn't believe that I gave her grain, new wine, and olive oil. I gave her plenty of silver and gold, but she used it to make statues of Baal.

9 That is why I will take back my grain when it has ripened and my new wine when it's in season. I will take away the wool and the linen that I gave her to cover her naked body.

10 I will show her naked body to her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my power.

11 I will put an end to all her celebrations: her annual festivals, her New Moon Festivals, her weekly worship days--all her appointed festivals.

12 I will destroy her grapevines and fig trees. She said that they were gifts from her lovers. I will turn her vineyards into a forest, and wild animals will devour them.

Hosea 2:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 2

This chapter is an explanation of the former, proceeding upon the same argument in more express words. The godly Israelites are here called upon to lay before the body of the people their idolatry, ingratitude, obstinacy, and ignorance of the God of their mercies; and to exhort them to repentance, lest they should be stripped of all their good things, and be brought into great distress and difficulties; all their joy and comfort cease, and be exposed to shame and contempt, Ho 2:1-13, yet, notwithstanding, many gracious promises are made unto them, of their having the alluring and comfortable word of the Gospel; of a door of hope; of salvation being opened to them; of faith in the Lord, and affection to him as their husband; of the removal of all idolatry from them; of safety from all enemies; of their open espousal to Christ; of his hearing of their prayers, and giving them plenty of all good things; and of their multiplication, conversion, and covenant relation to God, Ho 2:14-23.