| New King James Version | NET Bible |
| 1Say to your brethren, ‘My people,’ And to your sisters, ‘Mercy is shown.’ | 1Then you will call your brother, "My People" (Ammi)! You will call your sister, "Pity" (Ruhamah)! |
| 2“Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts; | 2Plead earnestly with your mother (for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband), so that she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior. |
| 3Lest I strip her naked And expose her, as in the day she was born, And make her like a wilderness, And set her like a dry land, And slay her with thirst. | 3Otherwise, I will strip her naked, and expose her like she was when she was born. I will turn her land into a wilderness and make her country a parched land, so that I might kill her with thirst. |
| 4“I will not have mercy on her children, For they are the children of harlotry. | 4I will have no pity on her children, because they are children conceived in adultery. |
| 5For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.’ | 5For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, "I will seek out my lovers; they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine. |
| 6“Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, And wall her in, So that she cannot find her paths. | 6Therefore, I will soon fence her in with thorns; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. |
| 7She will chase her lovers, But not overtake them; Yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, For then it was better for me than now.’ | 7Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them; she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, "I will go back to my husband, because I was better off then than I am now." |
| 8For she did not know That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, And multiplied her silver and gold— Which they prepared for Baal. | 8Yet until now she has refused to acknowledge that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil; and that it was I who lavished on her the silver and gold--which they used in worshiping Baal! |
| 9“Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And will take back My wool and My linen, Given to cover her nakedness. | 9Therefore, I will take back my grain during the harvest time and my new wine when it ripens; I will take away my wool and my flax which I had provided in order to clothe her. |
| 10Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, And no one shall deliver her from My hand. | 10Soon I will expose her lewd nakedness in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to rescue her from me! |
| 11I will also cause all her mirth to cease, Her feast days, Her New Moons, Her Sabbaths— All her appointed feasts. | 11I will put an end to all her celebration: her annual religious festivals, monthly new moon celebrations, and weekly Sabbath festivities--all her appointed festivals. |
| 12“And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, Of which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’ So I will make them a forest, And the beasts of the field shall eat them. | 12I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, "These are my wages for prostitution that my lovers gave to me!" I will turn her cultivated vines and fig trees into an uncultivated thicket, so that wild animals will devour them. |
| 13I will punish her For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry, And went after her lovers; But Me she forgot,” says the LORD. | 13"I will punish her for the festival days when she burned incense to the Baal idols; she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but she forgot me!" says the LORD. |
| 14“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Will bring her into the wilderness, And speak comfort to her. | 14However, in the future I will allure her; I will lead her back into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. |
| 15I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. | 15From there I will give back her vineyards to her, and turn the "Valley of Trouble" into an "Opportunity for Hope." There she will sing as she did when she was young, when she came up from the land of Egypt. |
| 16“And it shall be, in that day,” Says the LORD, “That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’ And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’ | 16"At that time," declares the LORD, "you will call, 'My husband'; you will never again call me, 'My master.' |
| 17For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, And they shall be remembered by their name no more. | 17For I will remove the names of the Baal idols from your lips, so that you will never again utter their names!" |
| 18In that day I will make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, With the birds of the air, And with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, To make them lie down safely. | 18"At that time I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will abolish the warrior's bow and sword--that is, every weapon of warfare--from the land, and I will allow them to live securely." |
| 19“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; | 19I will commit myself to you forever; I will commit myself to you in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and tender compassion. |
| 20I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD. | 20I will commit myself to you in faithfulness; then you will acknowledge the LORD." |
| 21“It shall come to pass in that day That I will answer,” says the LORD; “I will answer the heavens, And they shall answer the earth. | 21"At that time, I will willingly respond," declares the LORD. "I will respond to the sky, and the sky will respond to the ground; |
| 22The earth shall answer With grain, With new wine, And with oil; They shall answer Jezreel. | 22then the ground will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil; and they will respond to 'God Plants' (Jezreel)! |
| 23Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ” | 23Then I will plant her as my own in the land. I will have pity on 'No Pity' (Lo-Ruhamah). I will say to 'Not My People' (Lo-Ammi), 'You are my people!' And he will say, 'You are my God!'" |
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