The beginning of the word of Jehovah by Hosea. And Jehovah will say to Hosea, Go, take to thee a wife of fornication and children of fornication; for the land committing fornication, will commit fornication from after Jehovah.

And Jehovah will say to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little and I reviewed the bloods of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I caused the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

And she will yet conceive and bring forth a daughter. And he will say to him, Call her name, Not being compassionated: for I will no more add to compassionate the house of Israel; for taking away, I will take them away.

And he will say; Call his name, Not my people: for ye are not my people, and I will not be to you.

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

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.

“And I will punish her for the [feast] days of the Baals,
When she used to offer sacrifices and burn incense to them
And adorn herself with her earrings and nose rings and her jewelry,
And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me,” says the Lord.

For this cause I will make her come into the waste land and will say words of comfort to her.

“It shall come about in that day,” says the Lord,
“That you will call Me Ishi (my husband)
And will no longer call Me Baali (my Baal).

For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and never again will she say their names.

“It will come about in that day that I will respond,” says the Lord.
“I will respond to the heavens [which ask for rain to pour on the earth], and they will respond to the earth [which begs for the rain],

And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

And Jehovah will say to me, Yet go, love a woman loving evil and an adulteress, as Jehovah loves the sons of Israel, and they took to other gods and love raisin-cakes.

and I say unto her, 'Many days thou dost remain for Me, thou dost not go a-whoring, nor become any one's; and I also am for thee.'

Their drunkenness hath put them back, and brought them to whoredom. Their rulers love rewards; "Bring," say they, to their own shame.

In their adversity they shall seek me, and say, "Come, let us turn again to the LORD: for he hath smitten us, and he shall heal us;

O Ephraim, what shall I do with you?
O Judah, what shall I do with you?
For your [wavering] loyalty and kindness are [transient] like the morning cloud
And like the dew that goes away early.

And they say not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now do their own doings encompass them; they are before my face.

Israel can say unto me, "Thou art my God, we know thee,"

All their wickedness [says the Lord] is focused in Gilgal;
Indeed, I came to hate them there!
Because of the wickedness of their [idolatrous] practices
I will drive them out of My house (the land of Israel)!
I will love them no longer;
All their princes are rebels.

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

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.

They will come trembling and hurriedly like birds from Egypt
And like doves from the land of Assyria;
And I will settle them in their houses [in the land of their inheritance], declares the Lord.

But Ephraim says:
“How rich I have become;
I made it all myself.
In all my earnings,
no one can find any crime in me
that I can be punished for!”

And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

Thou hast destroyed thyself, O Israel, But in Me is thy help, Where is thy king now -- And he doth save thee in all thy cities? And thy judges of whom thou didst say, 'Give to me a king and heads?'

Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.

Asshur 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.

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.