| 2:1 | Say to your brethren, `My people,' And to your sisters, `Mercy [is shown].' |
| 2:2 | "Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she [is] not My wife, nor [am] I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts; |
| 2:3 | Lest I strip her naked And expose her, as in the day she was born, And make her like a wilderness, And set her like a dry land, And slay her with thirst. |
| 2:4 | "I will not have mercy on her children, For they [are] the children of harlotry. |
| 2:5 | For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, `I will go after my lovers, Who give [me] my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.' |
| 2:6 | "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, And wall her in, So that she cannot find her paths. |
| 2:7 | She will chase her lovers, But not overtake them; Yes, she will seek them, but not find [them]. Then she will say, `I will go and return to my first husband, For then [it was] better for me than now.' |
| 2:8 | For she did not know That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, And multiplied her silver and gold[Which] they prepared for Baal. |
| 2:9 | "Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And will take back My wool and My linen, [Given] to cover her nakedness. |
| 2:10 | Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, And no one shall deliver her from My hand. |
| 2:11 | I will also cause all her mirth to cease, Her feast days, Her New Moons, Her SabbathsAll her appointed feasts. |
| 2:12 | "And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, Of which she has said, `These [are] my wages that my lovers have given me.' So I will make them a forest, And the beasts of the field shall eat them. |
| 2:13 | I will punish her For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense. She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry, And went after her lovers; But Me she forgot," says the LORD. |
| 2:14 | "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Will bring her into the wilderness, And speak comfort to her. |
| 2:15 | I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. |
| 2:16 | "And it shall be, in that day," Says the LORD, "[That] you will call Me `My Husband,' And no longer call Me `My Master,' |
| 2:17 | For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals, And they shall be remembered by their name no more. |
| 2:18 | In that day I will make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, With the birds of the air, And [with] the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, To make them lie down safely. |
| 2:19 | "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; |
| 2:20 | I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD. |
| 2:21 | "It shall come to pass in that day [That] I will answer," says the LORD; "I will answer the heavens, And they shall answer the earth. |
| 2:22 | The earth shall answer With grain, With new wine, And with oil; They shall answer Jezreel. |
| 2:23 | Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on [her who had] not obtained mercy; Then I will say to [those who were] not My people, `You [are] My people!' And they shall say, `[You are] my God!'" |
Hosea 2 - New King James Version
