Hosea 1; Hosea 2; Hosea 3; Hosea 4; Revelation 1

1 This is the message which the Lord gave Hosea son of Beeri during the time that Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

2 When the Lord first spoke to Israel through Hosea, he said to Hosea, "Go and get married; your wife will be unfaithful, and your children will be just like her. In the same way my people have left me and become unfaithful."

3 So Hosea married a woman named Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. After the birth of their first child, a son,

4 the Lord said to Hosea, "Name him "Jezreel,' because it will not be long before I punish the king of Israel for the murders that his ancestor Jehu committed at Jezreel. I am going to put an end to Jehu's dynasty.

5 And in Jezreel Valley I will at that time destroy Israel's military power."

6 Gomer had a second child - this time it was a daughter. The Lord said to Hosea, "Name her "Unloved,' because I will no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them.

7 But to the people of Judah I will show love. I, the Lord their God, will save them, but I will not do it by war - with swords or bows and arrows or with horses and horsemen."

8 After Gomer had weaned her daughter, she became pregnant again and had another son.

9 The Lord said to Hosea, "Name him "Not-My-People,' because the people of Israel are not my people, and I am not their God."

10 The people of Israel will become like the sand of the sea, more than can be counted or measured. Now God says to them, "You are not my people," but the day is coming when he will say to them, "You are the children of the living God!"

11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited. They will choose for themselves a single leader, and once again they will grow and prosper in their land. Yes, the day of Jezreel will be a great day!

1 So call your fellow Israelites "God's People" and "Loved-by-the-Lord."

2 My children, plead with your mother - though she is no longer a wife to me, and I am no longer her husband. Plead with her to stop her adultery and prostitution.

3 If she does not, I will strip her as naked as she was on the day she was born. I will make her like a dry and barren land, and she will die of thirst.

4 I will not show mercy to her children; they are the children of a shameless prostitute. She herself said, "I will go to my lovers - they give me food and water, wool and linen, olive oil and wine."

6 So I am going to fence her in with thorn bushes and build a wall to block her way.

7 She will run after her lovers but will not catch them. She will look for them but will not find them. Then she will say, "I am going back to my first husband - I was better off then than I am now."

8 She would never acknowledge that I am the one who gave her the grain, the wine, the olive oil, and all the silver and gold that she used in the worship of Baal.

9 So at harvest time I will take back my gifts of grain and wine, and will take away the wool and the linen I gave her for clothing.

10 I will strip her naked in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to save her from my power.

11 I will put an end to all her festivities - her annual and monthly festivals and her Sabbath celebrations - all her religious meetings.

12 I will destroy her grapevines and her fig trees, which she said her lovers gave her for serving them. I will turn her vineyards and orchards into a wilderness; wild animals will destroy them.

13 I will punish her for the times that she forgot me, when she burned incense to Baal and put on her jewelry to go chasing after her lovers. The Lord has spoken.

14 So I am going to take her into the desert again; there I will win her back with words of love.

15 I will give back to her the vineyards she had and make Trouble Valley a door of hope. She will respond to me there as she did when she was young, when she came from Egypt.

16 Then once again she will call me her husband - she will no longer call me her Baal.

17 I will never let her speak the name of Baal again.

18 At that time I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and birds, so that they will not harm my people. I will also remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, and will let my people live in peace and safety.

19 Israel, I will make you my wife; I will be true and faithful; I will show you constant love and mercy and make you mine forever.

20 I will keep my promise and make you mine, and you will acknowledge me as Lord.

21 At that time I will answer the prayers of my people Israel. I will make rain fall on the earth, and the earth will produce grain and grapes and olives.

23 I will establish my people in the land and make them prosper. I will show love to those who were called "Unloved," and to those who were called "Not-My-People" I will say, "You are my people," and they will answer, "You are our God."

1 The Lord said to me, "Go again and show your love for a woman who is committing adultery with a lover. You must love her just as I still love the people of Israel, even though they turn to other gods and like to take offerings of raisins to idols."

2 So I paid fifteen pieces of silver and seven bushels of barley to buy her.

3 I told her that for a long time she would have to wait for me without being a prostitute or committing adultery; and during this time I would wait for her.

4 In just this way the people of Israel will have to live for a long time without kings or leaders, without sacrifices or sacred stone pillars, without idols or images to use for divination.

5 But the time will come when the people of Israel will once again turn to the Lord their God and to a descendant of David their king. Then they will fear the Lord and will receive his good gifts.

1 The Lord has an accusation to bring against the people who live in this land. Listen, Israel, to what he says: "There is no faithfulness or love in the land, and the people do not acknowledge me as God.

2 They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.

3 And so the land will dry up, and everything that lives on it will die. All the animals and birds, and even the fish, will die."

4 The Lord says, "Let no one accuse the people or reprimand them - my complaint is against you priests.

5 Night and day you blunder on, and the prophets do no better than you. I am going to destroy Israel, your mother.

6 My people are doomed because they do not acknowledge me. You priests have refused to acknowledge me and have rejected my teaching, and so I reject you and will not acknowledge your sons as my priests.

7 "The more of you priests there are, the more you sin against me, and so I will turn your honor into disgrace.

8 You grow rich from the sins of my people, and so you want them to sin more and more.

9 You will suffer the same punishment as the people! I will punish you and make you pay for the evil you do.

10 You will eat your share of the sacrifices, but still be hungry. You will worship the fertility gods, but still have no children, because you have turned away from me to follow other gods."

11 The Lord says, "Wine, both old and new, is robbing my people of their senses!

12 They ask for revelations from a piece of wood! A stick tells them what they want to know! They have left me. Like a woman who becomes a prostitute, they have given themselves to other gods.

13 At sacred places on the mountaintops they offer sacrifices, and on the hills they burn incense under tall, spreading trees, because the shade is so pleasant! "As a result, your daughters serve as prostitutes, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

14 Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, "A people without sense will be ruined.'

15 "Even though you people of Israel are unfaithful to me, may Judah not be guilty of the same thing. Don't worship at Gilgal or Bethaven, or make promises there in the name of the living Lord.

16 The people of Israel are as stubborn as mules. How can I feed them like lambs in a meadow?

17 The people of Israel are under the spell of idols. Let them go their own way.

18 After drinking much wine, they delight in their prostitution, preferring disgrace to honor.

19 They will be carried away as by the wind, and they will be ashamed of their pagan sacrifices. ,

1 This book is the record of the events that Jesus Christ revealed. God gave him this revelation in order to show to his servants what must happen very soon. Christ made these things known to his servant John by sending his angel to him,

2 and John has told all that he has seen. This is his report concerning the message from God and the truth revealed by Jesus Christ.

3 Happy is the one who reads this book, and happy are those who listen to the words of this prophetic message and obey what is written in this book! For the time is near when all these things will happen.

4 From John to the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace be yours from God, who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits in front of his throne,

5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first to be raised from death and who is also the ruler of the kings of the world. He loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins

6 and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father. To Jesus Christ be the glory and power forever and ever! Amen.

7 Look, he is coming on the clouds! Everyone will see him, including those who pierced him. All peoples on earth will mourn over him. So shall it be!

8 "I am the first and the last," says the Lord God Almighty, who is, who was, and who is to come.

9 I am John, your brother, and as a follower of Jesus I am your partner in patiently enduring the suffering that comes to those who belong to his Kingdom. I was put on the island of Patmos because I had proclaimed God's word and the truth that Jesus revealed.

10 On the Lord's day the Spirit took control of me, and I heard a loud voice, that sounded like a trumpet, speaking behind me.

11 It said, "Write down what you see, and send the book to the churches in these seven cities: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea."

12 I turned around to see who was talking to me, and I saw seven gold lampstands,

13 and among them there was what looked like a human being, wearing a robe that reached to his feet, and a gold band around his chest.

14 His hair was white as wool, or as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire;

15 his feet shone like brass that has been refined and polished, and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall.

16 He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth. His face was as bright as the midday sun.

17 When I saw him, I fell down at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me and said, "Don't be afraid! I am the first and the last.

18 I am the living one! I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I have authority over death and the world of the dead.

19 Write, then, the things you see, both the things that are now and the things that will happen afterward.

20 Here is the secret meaning of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven gold lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.