Hosea 2:1-9 ▼

1 Say ye to your brethren, My people; and to your sisters, Being compassionated.

2 Contend with your mother, contend ye, for she is not my wife, and I not her husband: for she shall put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

3 Lest I shall strip her naked, and I set her as the day of her birth, and I set her as a desert, and I set her as a land of dryness, and I slew her with thirst.

4 And her sons I will not compassionate, for they are the sons of fornications.

5 For their mother committed fornication: she conceiving them acted shamefully: for she said, I will go after those loving me giving me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, mine oil and my drinks.

6 Therefore, behold me hedging in thy way with thorns, and I walled a wall and she shall not find her beaten paths.

7 And she pursued those loving her, and she shall not overtake them; and she sought them and she shall not find: and she said, I will go and turn back to my former husband, for it was well to me then more than now.

8 And she knew not that I gave to her grain, and new wine, and new oil, and I multiplied silver to her, and gold they made for Baal.

9 For this I will turn back and take away my grain in its time, and my new wine in its appointment, and I took away my wool and my linen to cover her nakedness.