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.

And the LORD said to 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 she conceived again, and bore a daughter. And God said to him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.

Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

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 not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of lewdness.

For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

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 did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

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.

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 animals 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 in safety.

And I will betroth thee to me for ever; yes, I will betroth thee to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies.

So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley:

And I said to her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.

For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:

Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.

Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

Yet let no man contend, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that contend with the priest.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.

For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall be guilty of lewdness, and shall not increase: because they have ceased to take heed to the LORD.

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 will not punish your daughters when they are guilty of lewdness, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for they themselves are separated with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.

For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.

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

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou art guilty of lewdness, and Israel is defiled.

They will not frame their doings to turn to their God: for the spirit of lewdness is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LORD.

They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.

For I will be to Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him.

Come, and let us return to the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.

O Ephraim, what shall I do to thee? O Judah, what shall I do to thee? for your goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.

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

Also, O Judah, he hath set a harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.

When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was disclosed, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers strippeth without.

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

And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.

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.

And they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me.

They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

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 for themselves idols, that they may be cut off.

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 it shall yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.

Yes, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes.

They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of my 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 fortified cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

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.

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

For lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles.

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thy iniquity, and the great hatred.

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

All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of my house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.

For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the LORD; what then should a king do to us?

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.

It shall also be carried to Assyria, for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.

As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.

And Ephraim is as a heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he shall come and reign righteousness upon you.

I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid food for them.

I will not execute the fierceness of my anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.

And Ephraim said, Yet I have become rich, I have found for myself substance: in all my labors they shall find no iniquity in me that were sin.

And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.

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.

The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.

Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

O Israel, return to the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thy iniquity.

Ashur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.

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.

Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall in them.