Hosea 2:1-9 ▼

1 Say to your brothers, “Ammi,” and to your sisters, “Ruhamah.”

2 “Contend with your mother, contend, For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; And let her remove her harlotry from her face And her adultery from between her breasts,

3 Lest I strip her naked And set her forth as on the day when she was born And make her like a wilderness And make her like dry land And put her to death with thirst.

4 Also, I will have no compassion on her children Because they are children of harlotry.

5 For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

7 So she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; And she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go, and I will return to my first husband, For it was better for me then than now!’

8 “Now she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, And multiplied silver and gold for her, Which they used for Baal.

9 Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time And My new wine in its season. I will also deliver My wool and My flax from them Given to cover her nakedness.