Hosea 2
Open in the reader1Yet the number of the children of Strives-with-God will be like the sand of the Sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’
2Then the people of Praised and of Strives-with-God will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and will go up out of the land. For great will be the day of God-Sows.
3“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
4Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adultery from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
5Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her like the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and turn her into a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.
6I will have no compassion on her children, because they are the children of adultery.
7For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’
8Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way.
9She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’
10For she does not acknowledge that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, who lavished on her silver and gold— which they crafted for Baal.
11Therefore I will take back My grain in its time and My new wine in its season; I will take away My wool and linen, which were given to cover her nakedness.
12And then I will expose her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of My hands.
13I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Rests— all her appointed feasts.
14I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
15I will punish her for the days of The-Ruler when she burned incense to them, when she adorned herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers. But Me she forgot,” declares He-Who-Is.
16“Therefore, behold, I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly.
17There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Two-Straits.
18In that day,” declares He-Who-Is, “you will call Me ‘my Husband,’ and no longer call Me ‘my The-Ruler.’
19For I will remove from her lips the names of The-Ruler; no longer will their names be invoked.
20On that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that crawl on the ground. And I will abolish bow and sword and battle in the land, and will make them lie down in safety.
21So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion.
22And I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will know He-Who-Is.”
23“On that day I will respond—” declares He-Who-Is— “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth.
24And the earth will respond to the grain, to the new wine and oil, and they will respond to God-Sows.
25And I will sow her as My own in the land, and I will have compassion on ‘Not-Pitied.’ I will say to those called ‘Not-My-People,’ ‘You are My people,’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”