So call your brothers "Ammi,' and your sisters "Ruhamah.'"

And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel; for yet in a little while I will avenge the blood [that was shed in the Valley] of Jezreel and inflict the punishment for it on the house of Jehu, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.

Then Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the Lord said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-Ruhamah (not shown mercy), for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them.

But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God; and I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by battle, or by horses, or by horsemen.

Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel were gathered together, and they appointed to them one head, and they came up out of the land: for great the day of Jezreel.

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

Or I will strip her naked
And expose her as on the day when she was born.
I will also make her like a wilderness,
Make her like desert land
And slay her with thirst.

Yea, upon her children will I have no mercy; for they are children of whoredom;

For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, "I will seek out my lovers; they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine.

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way.

“For she (Israel) has not noticed nor understood nor realized that it was I [the Lord God] who gave her the grain and the new wine and the oil,
And lavished on her silver and gold,
Which they used for Baal and made into his image.

“Therefore, I will return and 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 I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, in which she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the LORD.

And I have turned aside the names of the lords from her mouth, And they are not remembered any more by their name.

And I have made to them a covenant in that day, with the beast of the field, And with the fowl of the heavens, And the creeping thing of the ground, And bow, and sword, and war I break from off the land, And have caused them to lie down confidently.

And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

And Jehovah saith unto me: 'Again, go, love a woman, loved of a friend, and an adulteress, like the loved of Jehovah, the sons of Israel, and they are turning unto other gods, and are lovers of grape-cakes.'

And I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the prostitute nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you [until you have proved your faithfulness].”

For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or teraphim:

Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel,
For the Lord has a [legal] case with the inhabitants of the land,
Because there is no faithfulness [no steadfast love, no dependability] or loyalty or kindness
Or knowledge of God [from personal experience with Him] in the land.

Cursing, lying, murder, stealing,
and adultery are rampant;
one act of bloodshed follows another.

Therefore mourn doth the land, And weak is every dweller in it, With the beast of the field, And with the fowl of the heavens, And the fishes of the sea -- they are removed.

Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.

So you will stumble in the daytime,
And the [false] prophet will also stumble with you in the night;
And I will destroy your mother (Israel).

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.

{They feed on the sin of my people}, {they are greedy} for their iniquity.

And they have eaten, and are not satisfied, They have gone a-whoring, and increase not, For they have left off taking heed to Jehovah.

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.

They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.

Even though you, Israel, [are] playing the whore, do not let Judah become guilty; do not enter Gilgal, or go up [to] Beth-aven; and do not swear, "{As Yahweh lives}!"

Their drink has become bitter; they are completely false; her rulers take pleasure in shame.

Distressed her hath wind with its wings, And they are ashamed of their sacrifices!

Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.

And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of them all.

I myself know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; because now you have played the whore, Ephraim-- Israel is defiled.

Their [immoral] practices will not permit them
To return to their God,
For the spirit of prostitution is within them
And they do not know the Lord [they do not recognize, appreciate, heed or cherish Him].

They are unfaithful to Yahweh; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

Blow the horn in Gibeah,
The trumpet in Ramah [the lofty hills on Benjamin’s northern border].
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven:
“Behind you and coming after you [is the enemy], O Benjamin [be on guard]!”

The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.

When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.

I go -- I turn back unto My place, Till that they are desolate, and have sought My face. In their distress they do seek Me speedily!'

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.

So let us acknowledge him! Let us seek to acknowledge the Lord! He will come to our rescue as certainly as the appearance of the dawn, as certainly as the winter rain comes, as certainly as the spring rain that waters the land."

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.

But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.

Gilead is a city full of evildoers; its streets are stained with bloody footprints!

And like a band of thieves waiting for a man, so are the priests watching secretly the way of those going quickly to Shechem, for they are working with an evil design.

I have seen a horrible thing [sins of every kind] in the house of Israel!
Ephraim’s prostitution (idolatry) is there; Israel has defiled itself.

Also, O Judah, there is a harvest [of divine judgment] appointed for you,
When I restore the fortunes of My people [who have been slaves to the misery of sin].

When my desire was for the fate of my people to be changed and to make Israel well, then the sin of Ephraim was made clear, and the evil-doing of Samaria; for their ways are false, and the thief comes into the house, while the band of outlaws takes property by force in the streets.

And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.

They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.

In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.

Because they are kindled like an oven, their heart burns within them; all night their anger {smolders}, [in the] morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.

Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.

And the pride of Israel gives an answer to his face; but for all this, they have not gone back to the Lord their God, or made search for him.

Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without heart or good sense;
They call to Egypt [for help], they go to Assyria.

When they go, I will spread My net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the heavens [into Assyrian captivity].
I will chastise them in accordance with the proclamation (prophecy) to their congregation.

And they have not made prayer to me in their hearts, but they make loud cries on their beds; they are cutting themselves for food and wine, they are turned against me.

They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Set the trumpet to your lips [announcing impending judgment]!
Like a [great] vulture the enemy comes against the house of the Lord,
Because they have broken My covenant
And transgressed and rebelled against My law.

They have made kings, and not by Me, They have made princes, and I have not known, Their silver and their gold they have made to them idols, So that they are cut off.

Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?

For they sow the wind [in evil]
And they reap the whirlwind [in disaster].
The standing grain has no growth;
It yields no grain.
If it were to yield, strangers would swallow it up.

Israel is swallowed up: now are they among the nations as a vessel wherein none delighteth.

For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.

Also though they hire among nations, Now I gather them, and they are pained a little, From the burden of a king of princes.

For Ephraim has constructed many altars for sin;
They are altars intended for sinning [which multiply his guilt].

I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.

Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation as do the [pagan] peoples,
For you have played the prostitute, turning away from your God.
You have loved prostitutes’ earnings on every threshing floor [attributing the harvest to the Baals instead of to God].

The grain-floor and the place where the grapes are crushed will not give them food; there will be no new wine for them.

They pour not out wine to Jehovah, Nor are they sweet to Him, Their sacrifices are as bread of mourners to them, All eating it are unclean: For their bread is for themselves, It doth not come into the house of Jehovah.

What will you do on the day of the appointed festival
And on the day of the feast of the Lord [when you are in exile]?

For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles.

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

The prophet is a watchman over Ephraim on behalf of God, yet traps are laid for him along all of his paths; animosity rages against him in the land of his God.

They made deep, they were corrupted as the days of the hill: he will remember their iniquity, he will review their sins.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.

Just as lion cubs are born predators, so Ephraim will bear his sons for slaughter.

Give them, Lord—
What should You give?
Give them a womb that miscarries
and breasts that are dry!

All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.

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.

Reject them doth my God, Because they have not hearkened to Him, And they are wanderers among nations!

Israel is a luxuriant and prolific vine;
He produces fruit for himself.
The more his fruit,
The more altars he made [to Baal];
The richer his land,
The better he made the [idolatrous] pillars.

Their heart hath been divided, now they are guilty, He doth break down their altars, He doth destroy their standing-pillars.

In fact, they are now saying,
“We have no king!
For we do not fear the Lord.
What can a king do for us?”

They have spoken empty (disingenuous) words,
Swearing falsely to make covenants [they intend to break];
Therefore, judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

As for Samaria, her king will be cut off and float away
Like a twig on the surface of the water.

Destroyed will be the high places of Aven, that are the sin of Israel. Both thorn and thistle will grow up over their altars. They will call out to the mountains, "Cover us!' and to the hills, "Fall on us!'

From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, Israel; there {they have remained}. Will not war in Gibeah overtake them against the children of evil?

When it is my desire, I will chastise them; and the peoples shall be gathered against them, when they are bound to their two transgressions.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.