When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him:

Go and marry a promiscuous wife
and have children of promiscuity,
for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity
by abandoning the Lord.

Then the Lord said to him:

Name him Jezreel, for in a little while
I will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel
on the house of Jehu
and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.

On that day I will break the bow of Israel
in the Valley of Jezreel.

She conceived again and gave birth to a daughter, and the Lord said to him:

Name her No Compassion,
for I will no longer have compassion
on the house of Israel.
I will certainly take them away.

But I will have compassion on the house of Judah,
and I will deliver them by the Lord their God.
I will not deliver them by bow, sword, or war,
or by horses and cavalry.

Then the Lord said:

Name him Not My People,
for you are not My people,
and I will not be your God.

Yet the number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured or counted.
And in the place where they were told:
You are not My people,
they will be called: Sons of the living God.

And the Judeans and the Israelites
will be gathered together.
They will appoint for themselves a single ruler
and go up from the land.
For the day of Jezreel will be great.

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Otherwise, I will strip her naked
and expose her as she was on the day of her birth.
I will make her like a desert
and like a parched land,
and I will let her die of thirst.

I will have no compassion on her children
because they are the children of promiscuity.

Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully.
For she thought, “I will go after my lovers,
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”

Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her way with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths.

She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;
she will seek them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband,
for then it was better for me than now.”

She does not recognize
that it is I who gave her the grain,
the new wine, and the oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.

Therefore, 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 to cover her nakedness.

Now I will expose her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from My hands.

I will put an end to all her celebrations:
her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—
all her festivals.

I will devastate her vines and fig trees.
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket,
and the wild animals will eat them.

And I will punish her for the days of the Baals
when she burned incense to them,
put on her rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but forgot Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

There I will give her vineyards back to her
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will call Me, “My husband,”
and no longer call Me, “My Baal.”

For I will remove the names of the Baals
from her mouth;
they will no longer be remembered by their names.

On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
I will shatter bow, sword,
and weapons of war in the land
and will enable the people to rest securely.

I will take you to be My wife forever.
I will take you to be My wife in righteousness,
justice, love, and compassion.

I will take you to be My wife in faithfulness,
and you will know Yahweh.

On that day I will respond—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.

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

I will sow her in the land for Myself,
and I will have compassion
on No Compassion;
I will say to Not My People:
You are My people,
and he will say, “You are My God.”

I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.”

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.

You will stumble by day;
the prophet will also stumble with you by night.
And I will destroy your mother.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I will reject you from serving as My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your sons.

The more they multiplied,
the more they sinned against Me.
I will change their honor into disgrace.

The same judgment will happen
to both people and priests.
I will punish them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.

They will eat but not be satisfied;
they will be promiscuous but not multiply.
For they have abandoned their devotion to the Lord.

I will not punish your daughters
when they act promiscuously
or your daughters-in-law
when they commit adultery,
for the men themselves go off with prostitutes
and make sacrifices with cult prostitutes.
People without discernment are doomed.

A wind with its wings will carry them off,
and they will be ashamed of their sacrifices.

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Rebels are deeply involved in slaughter;
I will be a punishment for all of them.

Their actions do not allow them
to return to their God,
for a spirit of promiscuity is among them,
and they do not know the Lord.

Israel’s arrogance testifies against them.
Both Israel and Ephraim stumble
because of their wickedness;
even Judah will stumble with them.

They betrayed the Lord;
indeed, they gave birth to illegitimate children.
Now the New Moon will devour them
along with their fields.

Ephraim will become a desolation
on the day of punishment;
I announce what is certain
among the tribes of Israel.

The princes of Judah are like those
who move boundary markers;
I will pour out My fury on them like water.

For I am like a lion to Ephraim
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
Yes, I will tear them to pieces and depart.
I will carry them off,
and no one can rescue them.

I will depart and return to My place
until they recognize their guilt and seek My face;
they will search for Me in their distress.

Come, let us return to the Lord.
For He has torn us,
and He will heal us;
He has wounded us,
and He will bind up our wounds.

He will revive us after two days,
and on the third day He will raise us up
so we can live in His presence.

Let us strive to know the Lord.
His appearance is as sure as the dawn.
He will come to us like the rain,
like the spring showers that water the land.

when I heal Israel,
the sins of Ephraim and the crimes of Samaria
will be exposed.
For they practice fraud;
a thief breaks in;
a raiding party pillages outside.

But they never consider that I remember all their evil.
Now their sins are all around them;
they are right in front of My face.

All of them commit adultery;
they are like an oven heated by a baker
who stops stirring the fire
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

For they—their hearts like an oven—
draw him into their oven.
Their anger smolders all night;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

All of them are as hot as an oven,
and they consume their rulers.
All their kings fall;
not one of them calls on Me.

Israel’s arrogance testifies against them,
yet they do not return to Yahweh their God,
and for all this, they do not seek Him.

As they are going, I will spread My net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the sky.
I will discipline them in accordance
with the news that reaches their assembly.

They do not cry to Me from their hearts;
rather, they wail on their beds.
They slash themselves for grain and new wine;
they turn away from Me.

They turn, but not to what is above;
they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
because of the cursing of their tongue.
They will be ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt.

Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.

Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!

Even though they hire lovers among the nations,
I will now round them up,
and they will begin to decrease in number
under the burden of the king and leaders.

Though they offer sacrificial gifts
and eat the flesh,
the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they will return to Egypt.

Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces;
Judah has also multiplied fortified cities.
I will send fire on their cities,
and it will consume their citadels.

Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them,
and the new wine will fail them.

They will not stay in the land of the Lord.
Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt,
and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

They will not pour out
their wine offerings to the Lord,
and their sacrifices will not please Him.
Their food will be like the bread of mourners;
all who eat it become defiled.
For their bread will be for their appetites alone;
it will not enter the house of the Lord.

What will you do on a festival day,
on the day of the Lord’s feast?

For even if they flee from devastation,
Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them.
Thistles will take possession of their precious silver;
thorns will invade their tents.

Ephraim’s watchman is with my God.
The prophet encounters a fowler’s snare
on all his ways.
Hostility is in the house of his God!

They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah.
He will remember their guilt;
He will punish their sins.

Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird:
no birth, no gestation, no conception.

Even if they raise children,
I will bereave them of each one.
Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!

I have seen Ephraim like Tyre,
planted in a meadow,
so Ephraim will bring out his children
to the executioner.

All their evil appears at Gilgal,
for there I came to hate them.
I will drive them from My house
because of their evil, wicked actions.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.

Ephraim is struck down;
their roots are withered;
they cannot bear fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill the precious offspring of their wombs.

My God will reject them
because they have not listened to Him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.

Their hearts are devious;
now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
and demolish their sacred pillars.

They speak mere words,
taking false oaths while making covenants.
So lawsuits break out
like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.

The residents of Samaria will have anxiety
over the calf of Beth-aven.
Indeed, its idolatrous priests rejoiced over it;
the people will mourn over it,
over its glory.
It will certainly depart from them.

The calf itself will be taken to Assyria
as an offering to the great king.
Ephraim will experience shame;
Israel will be ashamed of its counsel.

Samaria’s king will disappear
like foam on the surface of the water.

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,
will be destroyed;
thorns and thistles will grow over their altars.
They will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

Israel, you have sinned
since the days of Gibeah;
they have taken their stand there.
Will not war against the unjust
overtake them in Gibeah?

I will discipline them at My discretion;
nations will be gathered against them
to put them in bondage
for their two crimes.

Ephraim is a well-trained calf
that loves to thresh,
but I will place a yoke on her fine neck.
I will harness Ephraim;
Judah will plow;
Jacob will do the final plowing.

the roar of battle will rise against your people,
and all your fortifications will be demolished
in a day of war,
like Shalman’s destruction of Beth-arbel.
Mothers will be dashed to pieces
along with their children.

So it will be done to you, Bethel,
because of your extreme evil.
At dawn the king of Israel will be totally destroyed.

Israel will not return to the land of Egypt
and Assyria will be his king,
because they refused to repent.

A sword will whirl through his cities;
it will destroy and devour the bars of his gates,
because of their schemes.

My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call to Him on high,
He will not exalt them at all.

I will not vent the full fury of My anger;
I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim.
For I am God and not man,
the Holy One among you;
I will not come in rage.

They will follow the Lord;
He will roar like a lion.
When He roars,
His children will come trembling from the west.

They will be roused like birds from Egypt
and like doves from the land of Assyria.
Then I will settle them in their homes.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Ephraim surrounds me with lies,
the house of Israel, with deceit.
Judah still wanders with God
and is faithful to the holy ones.

Ephraim chases the wind
and pursues the east wind.
He continually multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a covenant with Assyria,
and olive oil is carried to Egypt.

The Lord also has a dispute with Judah.
He is about to punish Jacob according to his ways;
He will repay him based on his actions.

But Ephraim says:
“How rich I have become;
I made it all myself.
In all my earnings,
no one can find any crime in me
that I can be punished for!”

I have been Yahweh your God
ever since the land of Egypt.
I will make you live in tents again,
as in the festival days.

Since Gilead is full of evil,
they will certainly come to nothing.
They sacrifice bulls in Gilgal;
even their altars will be like heaps of rocks
on the furrows of a field.

Ephraim has provoked bitter anger,
so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him
and repay him for his contempt.

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