Say ye to your brethren -- Ammi, And to your sisters -- Ruhamah.

Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

“And I will betroth you (Israel) to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice,
In lovingkindness and loyalty, and in compassion.

“I will betroth you to Me in stability and in faithfulness.
Then you will know (recognize, appreciate) the Lord [and respond with loving faithfulness].

Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

They will eat and not be satisfied; they will play the whore and not multiply, because they have forsaken Yahweh {to devote themselves to

My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.

Though thou, Israel, playest the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye to Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven, nor swear, The LORD liveth.

O Ephraim, what am I to do to you? O Judah, what am I to do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew which goes early away.

And as bands do wait for a man, A company of priests do murder -- the way to Shechem, For wickedness they have done.

Woe to them, for they wandered from Me, Destruction to them, for they transgressed against Me, And I -- I ransom them, and they have spoken lies against Me,

They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD.

For though they nourish their sons, I have made them childless -- without man, Surely also, woe to them, when I turn aside from them.

With human cords, used I to draw them, with the bands of love, so became I unto them like those who remove the yoke that was on their jaws, - and, holding out food to him, I let him eat.

Therefore turn you to your God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on your God continually.

But I have been the Lord your God since [you became a nation in] the land of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
As in the days of the appointed and solemn festival.

Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him.

So I will be like a lion to them;
Like a leopard I will watch and lie in wait [ready to attack] by the road [to Assyria].

Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found.