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.

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.

Then the Lord said:

Name him Not My People,
for you are not My people,
and I will not be your 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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Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.
For she is not My wife and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts.

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.”

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.

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.

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 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.”

So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley.

For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols.

Hear the word of the Lord, people of Israel,
for the Lord has a case
against the inhabitants of the land:
There is no truth, no faithful love,
and no knowledge of God in the land!

For this reason the land mourns,
and everyone who lives in it languishes,
along with the wild animals and the birds of the sky;
even the fish of the sea disappear.

But let no one dispute; let no one argue,
for My case is against you priests.

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.

They feed on the sin of My people;
they have an appetite for their transgressions.

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.

My people consult their wooden idols,
and their divining rods inform them.
For a spirit of promiscuity leads them astray;
they act promiscuously
in disobedience to their God.

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.

For Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn cow.
Can the Lord now shepherd them
like a lamb in an open meadow?

Hear this, priests!
Pay attention, house of Israel!
Listen, royal house!
For the judgment applies to you
because you have been a snare at Mizpah
and a net spread out on Tabor.

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

I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from Me.
For now, Ephraim,
you have acted promiscuously;
Israel is defiled.

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.

Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
for he is determined to follow what is worthless.

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.

For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Like raiders who wait in ambush for someone,
a band of priests murders on the road to Shechem.
They commit atrocities.

A harvest is also appointed for you, Judah.

When I return My people from captivity,

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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.

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.

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

Woe to them, for they fled from Me;
destruction to them, for they rebelled against Me!
Though I want to redeem them,
they speak lies against Me.

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.

They have installed kings,
but not through Me.
They have appointed leaders,
but without My approval.
They make their silver and gold
into idols for themselves
for their own destruction.

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

For they have gone up to Assyria
like a wild donkey going off on its own.
Ephraim has paid for love.

When Ephraim multiplied his altars for sin,
they became his altars for sinning.

Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand points of My instruction,
they would be regarded as something strange.

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.

Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do,
for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God.
You have loved the wages of a prostitute
on every grain-threshing floor.

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.

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.

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.

Israel is a lush vine;
it yields fruit for itself.
The more his fruit increased,
the more he increased the altars.
The better his land produced,
the better they made the sacred 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?”

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

Sow righteousness for yourselves
and reap faithful love;
break up your unplowed ground.
It is time to seek the Lord
until He comes and sends righteousness
on you like the rain.

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 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.

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!”

Jacob fled to the land of Aram.
Israel worked to earn a wife;
he tended flocks for a wife.

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

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Israel, return to Yahweh your God,
for you have stumbled in your sin.

Assyria will not save us,
we will not ride on horses,
and we will no longer proclaim, ‘Our gods!’
to the work of our hands.
For the fatherless receives compassion in You.”

I will heal their apostasy;
I will freely love them,
for My anger will have turned from him.

Let whoever is wise understand these things,
and whoever is insightful recognize them.
For the ways of the Lord are right,
and the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.