The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go take to thee a wife addicted to lewdness and children of lewdness; for the land hath committed great lewdness, departing from the LORD.

Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be assembled, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up from the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

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

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, 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 from the land of Egypt.

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

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou art guilty of lewdness, 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They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them.

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

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

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

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast apostatized from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every corn-floor.

As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.

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

The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for its people shall mourn over it, and its priests that rejoiced on it, for its glory, because it is departed from it.

O Israel, thou hast 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 to Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.

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 tremble from the west.

And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.

Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind from the floor, and as the smoke from the chimney.

Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt 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 thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance 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 pillage the treasure of all pleasant vessels.

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

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.