When Jehovah spake at the first by Hosea, Jehovah said unto Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land doth commit great whoredom, departing from Jehovah.

So he went out and married Diblaim's daughter Gomer. She conceived with him and gave birth to a son.

And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.

And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

And she conceiveth again, and beareth a daughter, and He saith to him, 'Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, for I add no more to pity the house of Israel, for I do utterly take them away;

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.

Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of 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 whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

lest I strip her naked and set her out as in the day that she was born; and lest I make her as the wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

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, 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.

And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

“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 now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

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.

Therefore, lo! I, am going to persuade her, and, though I conduct her forth into wilderness, yet will I speak unto her heart.

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 up out of the land of Egypt.

And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.

For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

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 break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

And the earth shall respond to the grain and the new wine and the oil [which beg it to bring them forth],
And they will respond to Jezreel [My Israel, who will now be restored].

And I have sowed her to Me in the land, And I have pitied Lo-Ruhamah, And I have said to Lo-Ammi, My people thou art, and it saith, My God!'

Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.

Then I told her, "You must live with me many days; you must not commit adultery or have sexual intercourse with another man, and I also will wait for you."

For many days shall the sons of Israel dwell, not a king and not a chief and not a sacrifice and not a pillar and it one ephod and teraphim

Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king; and shall turn with fear toward Jehovah and toward his goodness, at the end of the days.

Give ear to the word of the Lord, O children of Israel; for the Lord has a cause against the people of this land, because there is no good faith in it, and no mercy and no knowledge of God in the land.

By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.

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.

You will stumble [by] day, and the priest also will stumble with you at night. And I will destroy your mother;

As they were magnified, so, they sinned against me, - My glory - for what was contemptible, did they exchange.

They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.

And it shall be, like people, like priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and will requite them their doings.

For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.

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.

Upon the heads of the mountains they will sacrifice, and upon the hills they will burn incense, under the oak and the white poplar and the terebinth, because its shadow was good: for this your daughters will commit fornication, and your brides shall commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute
Or your brides when they commit adultery,
For the men themselves slip away with prostitutes,
And they offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes [who give their bodies in honor of the idol].
So the people without understanding [stumble and fall and] come to ruin.

Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD liveth.

For Israel is refractory as an untractable heifer; now will Jehovah feed them as a lamb in a wide pasture.

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

The arrogance of Israel testifies against it; Israel and Ephraim will be overthrown because of their iniquity. Even Judah will be brought down with them.

They will go, with their flocks and their herds, in search of the Lord, but they will not see him; he has taken himself out of their view.

They have acted treacherously against Jehovah, for they have brought out strange sons. Now a new moon shall devour them with their portions.

Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: cry aloud at Bethaven, after thee, O Benjamin.

Ephraim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke;
Among the tribes of Israel I declare what is certain.

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

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

But, I, was like a moth, to Ephraim, - and like rotten wood to the house of Judah.

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 will depart, will return unto my place! till what time they acknowledge their guilt, and seek my face, - In their trouble, will they make for me diligent search.

Come, let us return to Yahweh; because [it is] he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck us down and will bind us up.

And let us have knowledge, let us go after the knowledge of the Lord; his going out is certain as the dawn, his decisions go out like the light; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.

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.

So I have had it cut in stones; I gave them teaching by the words of my mouth;

For it is love that I seek, and not sacrifice; knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

At Adam they broke the covenant; Oh how they were unfaithful to me!

Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity; it is stained with blood.

And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.

whenever I want to heal Israel, the sin of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed. For they do what is wrong; thieves break into houses, and gangs rob people out in the streets.

It never occurs to them that I remember all their sin. Now their actions have caught up with them, and they have my attention.

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.

For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

they are altogether as hot as an oven. They have devoured their own judges, all their kings are fallen: yet is there none of them that calleth upon 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 doth testify to his face: yet they have not returned unto Jehovah their God, nor sought him, for all this.

And Ephraim is like a foolish dove, without wisdom; they send out their cry to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

When they go, my net will be stretched out over them; I will take them like the birds of heaven, I will give them punishment, I will take them away in the net for their sin.

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.

They do not cry out to me from their heart, but they wail on their beds; because of grain and new wine they lacerate themselves; they depart from me.

Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against 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 cry out to me, "My God! We, Israel, know you!"

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

They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be 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 from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

Israel was swallowed down: now they were among the nations as a vessel no delight in it.

Even though they hire them among the nations, at once, will I gather them, when they have begun to be diminished by reason of the burden of the king of rulers.

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

They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepteth them not; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.

For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

Don't rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.

They shall not dwell in the LORD'S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.

They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD.

What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?

For, lo, they are gone away from destruction; yet Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them; their pleasant things of silver, nettles shall possess them; thorns shall be in their tents.

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 be gone too far, and have destroyed themselves, like as they did afore time at Gibeah. Therefore their wickedness shall be remembered, and their sins punished.

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.

Ephraim's glory [is] like a bird; it will fly away-- no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception.

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!

Ephraim, like as I have seen Tyre, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring out his children to the slayer.

Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

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.