Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them.

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

“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 back to my first husband,
For it was better for me then than now!’

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

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

“And then I will uncover her lewdness
In the sight of her lovers,
And no one will rescue her out of My hand.

“I will also put an end to all her gaiety,
Her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths
And all her festal assemblies.

“It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord,
“That you will call Me Ishi
And will no longer call Me Baali.

“For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth,
So that they will be mentioned by their names no more.

And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness.
Then you will know the Lord.

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

Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel,
For the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land,
Because there is no faithfulness or kindness
Or knowledge of God in the land.

Yet let no one find fault, and let none offer reproof;
For your people are like those who contend with the priest.

Harlotry, wine and new wine take away the understanding.

Since Israel is stubborn
Like a stubborn heifer,
Can the Lord now pasture them
Like a lamb in a large field?

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from Me;
For now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot,
Israel has defiled itself.

Their deeds will not allow them
To return to their God.
For a spirit of harlotry is within them,
And they do not know the Lord.

They have dealt treacherously against the Lord,
For they have borne illegitimate children.
Now the new moon will devour them with their land.

“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

And they do not consider in their hearts
That I remember all their wickedness.
Now their deeds are all around them;
They are before My face.

Strangers devour his strength,
Yet he does not know it;
Gray hairs also are sprinkled on him,
Yet he does not know it.

And they do not cry to Me from their heart
When they wail on their beds;
For the sake of grain and new wine they assemble themselves,
They turn away from Me.

They cry out to Me,
“My God, we of Israel know You!”

They have set up kings, but not by Me;
They have appointed princes, but I did not know it.
With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves,
That they might be cut off.

For they sow the wind
And they reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads;
It yields no grain.
Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.

Israel is swallowed up;
They are now among the nations
Like a vessel in which no one delights.

Even though they hire allies among the nations,
Now I will gather them up;
And they will begin to diminish
Because of the burden of the king of princes.

As for My sacrificial gifts,
They sacrifice the flesh and eat it,
But the Lord has taken no delight in them.
Now He will remember their iniquity,
And punish them for their sins;
They will return to Egypt.

Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,
And the new wine will fail them.

The days of punishment have come,
The days of retribution have come;
Let Israel know this!
The prophet is a fool,
The inspired man is demented,
Because of the grossness of your iniquity,
And because your hostility is so great.

As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—
No birth, no pregnancy and no conception!

All their evil is at Gilgal;
Indeed, I came to hate them there!
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of My house!
I will love them no more;
All their princes are rebels.

Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up,
They will bear no fruit.
Even though they bear children,
I will slay the precious ones of their womb.

Their heart is faithless;
Now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
And destroy their sacred pillars.

Surely now they will say, “We have no king,
For we do not revere the Lord.
As for the king, what can he do for us?”

Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them in My arms;
But they did not know that I healed them.

And Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich,
I have found wealth for myself;
In all my labors they will find in me
No iniquity, which would be sin.”

Now Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
And Israel worked for a wife,
And for a wife he kept sheep.

And now they sin more and more,
And make for themselves molten images,
Idols skillfully made from their silver,
All of them the work of craftsmen.
They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”

Yet I have been the Lord your God
Since the land of Egypt;
And you were not to know any god except Me,
For there is no savior besides Me.

Where now is your king
That he may save you in all your cities,
And your judges of whom you requested,
“Give me a king and princes”?

Whoever is wise, let him understand these things;
Whoever is discerning, let him know them.
For the ways of the Lord are right,
And the righteous will walk in them,
But transgressors will stumble in them.