Hosea 2:1-9 ▼

1 SAY to your brethren, Ammi, my people; and to your sisters, Rekhimtha, beloved.

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 Lest I strip her naked and leave her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness and as a dry land, and cause her to die with thirst.

4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of whoredoms.

5 For their mother has played the harlot; she that conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my clothes and my linen, my oil and everything that I need.

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and fence her paths so that she shall not find her paths.

7 And she shall follow after her lovers and shall not overtake them, and she shall seek them, but shall not find them; then shall she say, I will return and go to my first husband; for it was better with me then than now.

8 For she did not know that it was I who gave her wheat and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, some of which they made for the images of Baal.

9 Therefore I will return and take away my wheat in its time and my wine in its season, and will take away my wool and my linen which I gave her to cover her nakedness.