Hosea 2:1-9 ▼

1 Say to your brother, My people, and to your sister, Pitied.

2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband: and I will remove her fornication out of my presence, and her adultery from between her breasts:

3 that I may strip her naked, and make her again as she was at the day of her birth: and I will make her desolate, and make her as a dry land, and will kill her with thirst.

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

5 And their mother went a-whoring: she that bore them disgraced them : for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, and my garments, and my linen clothes, my oil and my necessaries.

6 Therefore, behold, I hedge up her way with thorns, and I will stop the ways, and she shall not find her path.

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

8 And she knew not that I gave her her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied silver to her: but she made silver and gold images for Baal.

9 Therefore I will return, and take away my corn in its season, and my wine in its time; and I will take away my raiment and my linen clothes, so that she shall not cover her nakedness.