Israel’s Adultery Rebuked

1“ Say of your⁺ brothers, ‘Ammi,†’

and of your⁺ sisters, ‘Ruhamah.†’

2Plead with your⁺ mother—

plead,

for she is not My wife,

and I am not her Husband—

that she might turn aside her prostitution from her face,

and her adultery from between her breasts,

3lest I strip her naked,

and expose her like the day of her being born,

and make her like the desert,

and set her like a parched land,

and kill her with thirst!

4And I will not show compassion to her children,

for they are sons of prostitution.

5For their mother has been a prostitute;

she who conceived them has acted shamefully,

for she said,

‘I will go after my lovers,

those giving me my bread and my water,

my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’

6Therefore, behold,

I am hedging up your path with thorns;

and I will wall her up with a wall,

so her paths she cannot find.

7And she will pursue her lovers, and she will not overtake them;

she will seek them, and she will not find them.

She will say,

‘I will go and return to my first husband,

for it was better for me then than now!’

8And she did not know

that I gave to her the grain,

and the new wine, and the oil,

and multiplied for her silver and gold,

which they prepared for Baal.

9Therefore I will return, and I will take away My grain in its time,

and My new wine in its season;

and I will snatch away My wool and My linen

to cover her nakedness!

10And now I will uncover her lewdness

before the eyes of her lovers,

and no man will deliver her

from My hand.

11And I will make cease all her rejoicing—

her feast, her New Moon, and her Sabbath,

and all her appointed feasts.

12And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,

of which she has said, “My wages, they are for me that which my lovers have given to me.”

I will make them a forest,

and the beasts of the field will devour them.

13And I will visit punishment on her for the days of the Baals,

to which she burned incense

and adorned herself with her rings and jewelry,

and went after her lovers—

and Me she forgot,”

a declaration of YHWH.

God’s Mercy to Israel

14“Therefore, behold, I am enticing her,

and I will bring her into the desert,

and I have spoken upon her heart.

15And I will give to her her vineyards from there,

and the valley of Achor†

as a door of hope;

and she will sing there

as in the days of her youth,

and as in the day of her coming up from the land of Egypt.

16And it will come to pass on that day,

a declaration of YHWH,

“That you will call out ‘My Ishi,†’

and no longer will you call Me ‘My Baal.†’

17For I will take the names of the Baals from her mouth,

and no longer will they be remembered by their name.

18And I will make for them a covenant on that day,

with the beasts of the field and with the birds of the heavens,

and with the creeping things of the ground.

And bow and sword and battle

I will break off from the earth,

and I will make them lie down in safety.

19And I will betroth you to Me forever;

and I will betroth you to Me in righteousness,

and in justice, and with loving devotion,† and with compassion.

20And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,

and you will know YHWH.

21And it will come to pass in that day that I will answer,”

a declaration of YHWH,

“I will answer the heavens,

and they will answer the earth;

22and the earth will answer with the grain,

and with the new wine, and with the oil;

and they will answer Jezreel,†

23and I will sow her for Myself in the land,

and I will show compassion to ‘Lo-ruhama;†’

and I will say to ‘Lo-ammi,†’

‘You are My people,†’

and he will say,

‘My God.’”

Footnotes:

1 Ammi means my people
1 Ruhamah means she has received mercy or Mercy is shown
15 Achor means trouble.
16 My Ishi means My husband.
16 My Baal means My master or My lord.
19 Forms of the Hebrew chesed are translated here and in most cases throughout the Scriptures as loving devotion; the range of meaning includes love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and mercy, as well as loyalty to a covenant.
22 Jezreel means God sows.
23 Lo-ruhamah means she has not received mercy; LXX I will love her who was not loved
23 Lo-ammi means not My people.
23 Cited in Romans 9:25 and 1 Peter 2:10