Hosea, 2

1. But the Israelites will become as numerous as the sands of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. In the very place where they were told, 'You are not my people,' they will be told they are 'Children of the living God'.

2. The Judaeans and Israelites will be reunited and will choose themselves a single head, and will spread far beyond their country, for great will be the Day of Jezreel!

3. Then call your brothers, 'My people', and your sisters, 'You have been pitied'.

4. To court, take your mother to court! For she is no longer my wife nor am I her husband. She must either remove her whoring ways from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts,

5. or I shall strip her and expose her naked as the day she was born; I shall make her as bare as the desert, I shall make her as dry as arid country, and let her die of thirst.

6. And I shall feel no pity for her children since they are the children of her whorings.

7. Yes, their mother has played the whore, she who conceived them has disgraced herself by saying, 'I shall chase after my lovers; they will assure me my keep, my wool, my flax, my oil and my drinks.'

8. This is why I shall block her way with thorns, and wall her in to stop her in her tracks;

9. then if she chases her lovers she will not catch them, if she looks for them she will not find them, and then she will say, 'I shall go back to my first husband, I was better off then than I am now;'

10. she had never realised before that I was the one who was giving her the grain, new wine and oil, giving her more and more silver and gold which they have spent on Baal!

11. This is why I shall take back my grain when it is due and my new wine, when the season for it comes. I shall withdraw my wool and my flax which were to cover her naked body,

12. and then display her infamy before her lovers' eyes- no one will take her from me then!

13. I shall put an end to all her merrymaking, her festivals, her New Moons and her Sabbaths and all her solemn feasts.

14. I shall make her vines and fig trees derelict of which she used to say, 'These are the pay my lovers gave me.' I shall turn them into a jungle: wild animals will feed on them.

15. I mean to make her pay for the feast-days on which she burnt incense to the Baals, when she tricked herself out in her earrings and necklaces to chase after her lovers, and forget me! -declares Yahweh.

16. But look, I am going to seduce her and lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.

17. There I shall give her back her vineyards, and make the Vale of Achor a gateway of hope. There she will respond as when she was young, as on the day when she came up from Egypt.

18. When that day comes- declares Yahweh- you will call me, 'My husband', no more will you call me, 'My Baal'.

19. I shall banish the names of the Baals from her lips and their name will be mentioned no more.

20. When that day comes I shall make a treaty for them with the wild animals, with the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth; I shall break the bow and the sword and warfare, and banish them from the country, and I will let them sleep secure.

21. I shall betroth you to myself for ever, I shall betroth you in uprightness and justice, and faithful love and tenderness.

22. Yes, I shall betroth you to myself in loyalty and in the knowledge of Yahweh.

23. When that day comes, I shall respond -declares Yahweh- I shall respond to the heavens and they will respond to the earth

24. and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.

25. I shall sow her in the country to be mine, I shall take pity on Lo-Ruhamah, I shall tell Lo-Ammi, 'You are my people,' and he will say, 'You are my God.'