1
“Say to your brothers—Ammi, || And to your sisters—Ruhamah.
2
Plead with your mother—plead || (For she [is] not My wife, and I [am] not her husband), || And she turns her whoredoms from before her, || And her adulteries from between her breasts,
3
Lest I strip her naked. And have set her up as [in] the day of her birth, || And have made her as a wilderness, || And have set her as a dry land, || And have put her to death with thirst.
4
And her sons I do not pity, || For they [are] sons of whoredoms,
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For their mother has gone whoring, || Their conceiver has acted shamefully, || For she has said, I go after my lovers, || Those giving my bread and my water, || My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.
6
Therefore, behold, I am hedging up your way with thorns, || And I have made a wall for her, || And her paths she does not find.
7
And she has pursued her lovers, || And she does not overtake them, || And has sought them, and does not find [them], || And she has said: I go, and I return to my first husband, || For—better to me then than now.
8
And she did not know that I had given to her || The grain, and the new wine, and the oil. Indeed, I multiplied silver to her, || And the gold they prepared for Ba‘al.
9
Therefore I return, || And I have taken My grain in its season, || And My new wine in its appointed time, || And I have taken away My wool and My flax, covering her nakedness.
10
And now I reveal her dishonor before the eyes of her lovers, || And none deliver her out of My hand.
11
And I have caused all her joy to cease, || Her festival, her new moon, and her Sabbath, || Even all her appointed times,
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And made desolate her vine and her fig tree, || Of which she said, They [are] a wage to me, || That my lovers have given to me, || And I have made them for a forest, || And a beast of the field has consumed them.
13
And I have charged on her the days of the Ba‘alim, || To whom she makes incense, || And puts on her ring and her ornament, || And goes after her lovers, || And forgot Me,” a declaration of YHWH.
God’s Mercy to Israel
14
“Therefore, behold, I am enticing her, || And have caused her to go to the wilderness, || And I have spoken to her heart,
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And given to her her vineyards from there, || And the Valley of Achor for an opening of hope, || And she has responded there as in the days of her youth, || And as in the day of her coming up out of the land of Egypt.
16
And it has come to pass in that day,” || A declaration of YHWH, || “You call Me: My husband, || And do not call Me anymore: My lord.
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And I have turned aside the names of the lords from her mouth, || And they are not remembered anymore by their name.
18
And I have made a covenant for them in that day, || With the beast of the field, || And with the bird of the heavens, || And the creeping thing of the ground, || And bow, and sword, and war I break from off the land, || And have caused them to lie down confidently.
19
And I have betrothed you to Me for all time, || And betrothed you to Me in righteousness, || And in judgment, and kindness, and mercies,
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And betrothed you to Me in faithfulness, || And you have known YHWH.
21
And it has come to pass in that day, I answer,” || A declaration of YHWH, || “I answer the heavens, and they answer the earth.
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And the earth answers the grain, || And the new wine, and the oil, || And they answer Jezreel.
23
And I have sowed her to Me in the land, || And I have pitied Lo-Ruhamah, || And I have said to Lo-Ammi, You [are] My people, || And he says, My God!”
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