2 “O Jezreel,[a] rename your brother and sister. Call your brother Ammi (which means ‘Now you are mine’); name your sister Ruhamah (‘Pitied’), for now God will have mercy upon her!
2 “Plead with your mother, for she has become another man’s wife—I am no longer her husband. Beg her to stop her harlotry, to quit giving herself to others. 3 If she doesn’t, I will strip her as naked as the day she was born and cause her to waste away and die of thirst as in a land riddled with famine and drought. 4 And I will not give special favors to her children as I would to my own, for they are not my children; they belong to other men.
5 “For their mother has committed adultery. She did a shameful thing when she said, ‘I’ll run after other men and sell myself to them for food and drinks and clothes.’
6 “But I will fence her in with briars and thornbushes; I’ll block the road before her to make her lose her way, so that 7 when she runs after her lovers, she will not catch up with them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’
8 “She doesn’t realize that all she has, has come from me. It was I who gave her all the gold and silver she used in worshiping Baal, her god!
9 “But now I will take back the wine and ripened corn I constantly supplied, and the clothes I gave her to cover her nakedness—I will no longer give her rich harvests of grain in its season or wine at the time of the grape harvest. 10 Now I will expose her nakedness in public for all her lovers to see, and no one will be able to rescue her from my hand.
11 “I will put an end to all her joys, her parties, holidays, and feasts. 12 I will destroy her vineyards and her orchards—gifts she claims her lovers gave her—and let them grow into a jungle; wild animals will eat their fruit.
13 “For all the incense she burned to Baal her idol and for the times when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out looking for her lovers and deserted me—for all these things I will punish her,” says the Lord.
14 “But I will court her again and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her tenderly there. 15 There I will give back her vineyards to her and transform her Valley of Troubles into a Door of Hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy as in days long ago in her youth after I had freed her from captivity in Egypt.
16 “In that coming day,” says the Lord, “she will call me ‘My Husband’ instead of ‘My Master.’[b] 17 O Israel, I will cause you to forget your idols, and their names will not be spoken anymore.
18 “At that time I will make a treaty between you and the wild animals, birds, and snakes, not to fear each other anymore; and I will destroy all weapons, and all wars will end.
“Then you will lie down in peace and safety, unafraid; 19 and I will bind you to me forever with chains of righteousness and justice and love and mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and love, and you will really know me then as you never have before.
21-22 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will answer the pleading of the sky for clouds, to pour down water on the earth in answer to its cry for rain. Then the earth can answer the parched cry of the grain, the grapes, and the olive trees for moisture and for dew—and the whole grand chorus shall sing together that ‘God sows!’[c] He has given all!
23 “At that time I will sow a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself! I will pity those who are ‘not pitied,’[d] and I will say to those who are ‘not my people,’ ‘Now you are my people’; and they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”
Footnotes
- Hosea 2:1 Jezreel is implied in the preceding chapter and verse.
- Hosea 2:16 “My Husband” instead of “My Master,” literally, “My Baal,” meaning “My Lord,” but this was a tainted word because it applied to idols, so it will no longer be used in reference to the true God.
- Hosea 2:21 “God sows,” literally, “Jezreel.”
- Hosea 2:23 “not pitied,” see 1:6, 9-10.