Chapter 2
To Conjure Up One’s Destiny
1 The Israelites will be as numerous
as the sands of the sea,
which can be neither measured nor numbered.
And in the very place where it was said to them,
“You are not my people,”
they will be called, “Children of the Living God.”
2 The people of Judah and of Israel
shall be gathered together.
They will choose one person to be their leader,
and they shall enlarge their boundaries,
for great will be the day of Jezreel.
3 Say to your brothers, “You are my people,”
and to your sisters, “You are beloved.”
Repudiation and Return to First Love
I Shall Strip Her Bare
4 Insist that your mother repent,
for she is no longer my wife,
and I am not her husband.
If she does not cease her harlotry
and the use of her breasts in adulterous acts,
5 I shall strip her bare,
leaving her as naked as the day she was born.
I shall make her as barren as the wilderness
and as parched as the desert,
leaving her to die of thirst.
6 Nor will I feel any pity for her children,
since they are the offspring of adultery.
7 Yes, their mother has been a whore;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
they will supply me with my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”
8 That is why I will block her path with thornbushes
and erect a wall to hinder her,
so that she cannot proceed on her journey.
9 Although she pursues her lovers,
she will not be able to overtake them.
If she looks for them,
she will not find them.
Finally she will say,
“I will return to my first husband,
since I was far better off then than I am now.”
10 She has never realized
that I was the one who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her the silver and gold
that they used for Baal.
11 For this reason I intend to take back
my grain when it is ready for the harvest
and my new wine during the time of vintage.
And I will retrieve the wool and the flax
with which her nakedness was to be covered.
12 Now I will reveal her lewdness
before the eyes of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her from my hands.
13 I will put an end to all her merrymaking,
her festivals, her new moons, and her sabbaths,
and all of her solemn festivals.
14 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
about which she said,
“These are the payment
I have received from my lovers.”
I shall allow them to grow wild,
and ferocious beasts will devour them.
15 I will inflict punishment on her
for the festival days of the Baals,
when she burned incense to them,
and adorned herself with her rings and jewels
and ran after her lovers
while she forgot me, says the Lord.
I Intend To Allure Her . . . and Speak Tenderly to Her
16 As a result, now I intend to allure her,
lead her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
17 From there I will restore her vineyards to her
and make the Valley of Achor a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.
18 On that day, says the Lord,
she will call me “My husband,”
and never again call me “My Baal.”
19 I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth;
never again shall their names be invoked.
20 On that day I will make for you
a covenant with the wild animals,
with the birds of the air,
and the things that creep on the ground.
I will destroy bows and swords and warfare
and banish them from the land
so that you may lie down in security.
21 I will betroth you to myself forever;
I will espouse you in righteousness and in justice,
in steadfast love and in mercy.
22 I will take you for my wife in fidelity,
and you will know the Lord.
23 On that day I will respond,
says the Lord.
I will respond to the heavens,
and they will respond to the earth,
24 and the earth will respond to the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
25 I will sow her for myself in the land,
and I will have pity on Lo-ruhama.
I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,”
and he will say, “You are my God.”
Footnotes
- Hosea 2:4
- Hosea 2:4
- Hosea 2:4
- Hosea 2:5
- Hosea 2:9
- Hosea 2:16
- Hosea 2:17
