The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto you a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry: for the land has committed great harlotry, departing from the LORD.

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

And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will abolish the bow and the sword and the battle from the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, you commit harlotry, and Israel is defiled.

They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD; but they shall not find him; he has withdrawn himself from them.

Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

For from Israel is even this: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.

Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them!

The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: for its people shall mourn over it, and its idolatrous priests shall wail over it, for its glory has departed from it.

O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.

As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.

I drew them with cords of compassion, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke from their jaws, and I laid food before them.

And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him.

They shall walk after the LORD: he shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall come trembling from the west.

And I that am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt will yet make you to dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.

Yet I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt, and you shall know no god but me: for there is no savior besides me.

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be your destruction: pity shall be hid from my eyes.

Though he is fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall plunder the treasury of every precious thing.

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for my anger has turned away from him.