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The Family of Hosea

2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ ³So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

4 And the Lord said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel;^* for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. ⁵On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.’

6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Name her Lo-ruhamah,^* for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. ⁷But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.’

8 When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. ⁹Then the Lord said, ‘Name him Lo-ammi,^* for you are not my people and I am not your God.’^*

The Restoration of Israel

10 ^*Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people’, it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’

2^*Say to your brother,^* Ammi,^* and to your sister,^* Ruhamah.^*

Israel’s Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption

² Plead with your mother, plead—
   for she is not my wife,
   and I am not her husband—
that she put away her whoring from her face,
   and her adultery from between her breasts,
³ or I will strip her naked
   and expose her as in the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
   and turn her into a parched land,
   and kill her with thirst.
¹⁴ Therefore, I will now persuade her,
   and bring her into the wilderness,
   and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ From there I will give her her vineyards,
   and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
   as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
¹⁶On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband’, and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal’.^*