So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

Yet the number of the sons of Israel
Will be like the sand of the sea,
Which cannot be measured or numbered;
And in the place
Where it is said to them,
“You are not My people,”
It will be said to them,
“You are the sons of the living God.”

Say to your brothers, “Ammi,” and to your sisters, “Ruhamah.”

“Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns,
And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

“She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them;
And she will seek them, but will not find them.
Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband,
For it was better for me then than now!’

“I will punish her for the days of the Baals
When she used to offer sacrifices to them
And adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry,
And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me,” declares the Lord.

“For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth,
So that they will be mentioned by their names no more.

“I will sow her for Myself in the land.
I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion,
And I will say to those who were not My people,
‘You are My people!’
And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”

So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.

Then I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you.”

There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing and adultery.
They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed.

Therefore the land mourns,
And everyone who lives in it languishes
Along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky,
And also the fish of the sea disappear.

So you will stumble by day,
And the prophet also will stumble with you by night;
And I will destroy your mother.

And it will be, like people, like priest;
So I will punish them for their ways
And repay them for their deeds.

My people consult their wooden idol, and their diviner’s wand informs them;
For a spirit of harlotry has led them astray,
And they have played the harlot, departing from their God.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot
Or your brides when they commit adultery,
For the men themselves go apart with harlots
And offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes;
So the people without understanding are ruined.

Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
Because he was determined to follow man’s command.

When Ephraim saw his sickness,
And Judah his wound,
Then Ephraim went to Assyria
And sent to King Jareb.
But he is unable to heal you,
Or to cure you of your wound.

“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

And as raiders wait for a man,
So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem;
Surely they have committed crime.

In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim’s harlotry is there, Israel has defiled itself.

So Ephraim has become like a silly dove, without sense;
They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

For from Israel is even this!
A craftsman made it, so it is not God;
Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces.

For they sow the wind
And they reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads;
It yields no grain.
Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.

They will not remain in the Lord’s land,
But Ephraim will return to Egypt,
And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.

The days of punishment have come,
The days of retribution have come;
Let Israel know this!
The prophet is a fool,
The inspired man is demented,
Because of the grossness of your iniquity,
And because your hostility is so great.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.
But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame,
And they became as detestable as that which they loved.

Surely now they will say, “We have no king,
For we do not revere the Lord.
As for the king, what can he do for us?”

Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed;
Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars;
Then they will say to the mountains,
“Cover us!” And to the hills, “Fall on us!”

Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.

So My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call them to the One on high,
None at all exalts Him.

Ephraim has provoked to bitter anger;
So his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him
And bring back his reproach to him.

And now they sin more and more,
And make for themselves molten images,
Idols skillfully made from their silver,
All of them the work of craftsmen.
They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!”

So I will be like a lion to them;
Like a leopard I will lie in wait by the wayside.

Take words with you and return to the Lord.
Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity
And receive us graciously,
That we may present the fruit of our lips.

“Assyria will not save us,
We will not ride on horses;
Nor will we say again, ‘Our god,’
To the work of our hands;
For in You the orphan finds mercy.”