NIV

Hosea 2

1<pb/><f>[4]</f>“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
2<pb/><t>“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,</t> <t>for she is not my wife,</t> <t>and I am not her husband.</t> <t>Let her remove the adulterous look from her face</t> <t>and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.</t>
3<t>Otherwise I will strip her naked</t> <t>and make her as bare as on the day she was born;</t> <t>I will make her like a desert,</t> <t>turn her into a parched land,</t> <t>and slay her with thirst.</t>
4<t>I will not show my love to her children,</t> <t>because they are the children of adultery.</t>
5<t>Their mother has been unfaithful</t> <t>and has conceived them in disgrace.</t> <t>She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,</t> <t>who give me my food and my water,</t> <t>my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’</t>
6<t>Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;</t> <t>I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.</t>
7<t>She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;</t> <t>she will look for them but not find them.</t> <t>Then she will say,</t> <t>‘I will go back to my husband as at first,</t> <t>for then I was better off than now.’</t>
8<t>She has not acknowledged that I was the one</t> <t>who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,</t> <t>who lavished on her the silver and gold—</t> <t>which they used for Baal. <pb/></t>
9<t>“Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,</t> <t>and my new wine when it is ready.</t> <t>I will take back my wool and my linen,</t> <t>intended to cover her naked body.</t>
10<t>So now I will expose her lewdness</t> <t>before the eyes of her lovers;</t> <t>no one will take her out of my hands.</t>
11<t>I will stop all her celebrations:</t> <t>her yearly festivals, her New Moons,</t> <t>her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.</t>
12<t>I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,</t> <t>which she said were her pay from her lovers;</t> <t>I will make them a thicket,</t> <t>and wild animals will devour them.</t>
13<t>I will punish her for the days</t> <t>she burned incense to the Baals;</t> <t>she decked herself with rings and jewelry,</t> <t>and went after her lovers,</t> <t>but me she forgot,”</t> <t>declares the LORD. <pb/></t>
14<t>“Therefore I am now going to allure her;</t> <t>I will lead her into the wilderness</t> <t>and speak tenderly to her.</t>
15<t>There I will give her back her vineyards,</t> <t>and will make the Valley of Achor<f>[5]</f> a door of hope.</t> <t>There she will respond<f>[6]</f> as in the days of her youth,</t> <t>as in the day she came up out of Egypt. <pb/></t>
16<t>“In that day,” declares the LORD,</t> <t>“you will call me ‘my husband’;</t> <t>you will no longer call me ‘my master.<f>[7]</f>’</t>
17<t>I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;</t> <t>no longer will their names be invoked.</t>
18<t>In that day I will make a covenant for them</t> <t>with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky</t> <t>and the creatures that move along the ground.</t> <t>Bow and sword and battle</t> <t>I will abolish from the land,</t> <t>so that all may lie down in safety.</t>
19<t>I will betroth you to me forever;</t> <t>I will betroth you in<f>[8]</f> righteousness and justice,</t> <t>in<f>[9]</f> love and compassion.</t>
20<t>I will betroth you in faithfulness,</t> <t>and you will acknowledge the LORD. <pb/></t>
21<t>“In that day I will respond,”</t> <t>declares the LORD—</t> <t>“I will respond to the skies,</t> <t>and they will respond to the earth;</t>
22<t>and the earth will respond to the grain,</t> <t>the new wine and the olive oil,</t> <t>and they will respond to Jezreel.<f>[10]</f></t>
23<t>I will plant her for myself in the land;</t> <t>I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.<f>[11]</f>’</t> <t>I will say to those called ‘Not my people,<f>[12]</f>’ ‘You are my people’;</t> <t>and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”</t>