2:1 Say ye to your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
2:2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she [is] not my wife,
neither [am] I her husband: let her therefore put away her
prostitutions out of her sight, and her adulteries from between
her breasts;
2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she
was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry
land, and kill her with thirst.
2:4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they [are]
the children of lewdness.
2:5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived
them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my
lovers, that give [me] my bread and my water, my wool and my
flax, my oil and my drink.
2:6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and
make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
2:7 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.
2:8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and
oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, [which] they prepared
for Baal.
2:9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its time,
and my wine in its season, and I will recover my wool and my
flax [given] to cover her nakedness.
2:10 And now will I disclose her lewdness in the sight of her
lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand.
2:11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days,
her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
2:12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, of which
she hath said, These [are] my rewards that my lovers have given
me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field
shall eat them.
2:13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, in which she
burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her
ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and
forgot me, saith the LORD.
2:14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into
the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.
2:15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the
valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there,
as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came
from the land of Egypt.
2:16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, [that] thou
shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.
2:17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth,
and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
2:18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the
beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and [with]
the creeping animals of the ground: and I will break the bow
and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make
them to lie down in safety.
2:19 And I will betroth thee to me for ever; yes, I will betroth
thee to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in
loving-kindness, and in mercies.
2:20 I will even betroth thee to me in faithfulness: and thou
shalt know the LORD.
2:21 And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith
the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the
earth;
2:22 And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the
oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.
2:23 And I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have
mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to
[them who were] not my people, Thou [art] my people; and they
shall say, [Thou art] my God.
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