She will pursue her lovers, but she won't catch up with them. She will seek them, but she won't find them. Then she will say, "I'll go back and return to my first husband, because it was better for me then than now.'

"Therefore I'll return and take back my grain at harvest time and my new wine in its season. I'll take back my wool and my flax that was to have covered her nakedness.

So I bought her back for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and one and a half omers of barley.

"I will leave and go back to my place until they admit their offense and seek my face. When affliction comes to them, they will eagerly seek me."

They offer me meat from the sacrifices of my offerings, and they eat from it, but the LORD does not accept them. He will now remember their transgression and pay them back for their sins; to Egypt they will return.

They have corrupted themselves deeply, as did Gibeah in its day. Therefore God will remember their lawlessness, and he will pay them back for their sins.

"Ephraim, the well-trained heifer, loves to thresh grain, so I will spare her neck. I will turn Ephraim into a pack animal. Judah will pull the plow, and Jacob will turn up the fallow ground.