Hos 2 | HCSB | STEP | Call your brothers : My People and your sisters : Compassion .

Hosea 2

1 ^{▼▼Hs 2:3 in Hb}Call ^{▼▼Lit Say to} your brothers: My People

and your sisters: Compassion.

Israel’s Adultery Rebuked

2 Rebuke your mother; rebuke her. ^c
For she is not My wife and I am not her husband. ^d
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face ^e
and her adultery from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked ^f
and expose her as she was on the day of her birth.
I will make her like a desert ^g
and like a parched land,
and I will let her die of thirst. ^h
4 I will have no compassion on her children ⁱ
because they are the children of promiscuity.
5 Yes, their mother is promiscuous;
she conceived them and acted shamefully. ^j
For she thought, “I will go after my lovers, ^k
the men who give me my food and water,
my wool and flax, my oil and drink.” ^l
6 Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her ^{▼▼LXX, Syr; MT reads your} way ⁿ with thorns; ^o
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths. ^p
7 She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; ^q
she will seek them but not find them.
Then she will think,
“I will go back to my former husband, ^r
for then it was better for me than now.” ^s
8 She does not recognize ^t
that it is I who gave her the grain, ^u
the new wine, and the oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for ^{▼▼Baal: A fertility god who was the main god of the Canaanite religion and the god of rain and thunderstorms; also the Hebrew word meaning "lord," "master," "owner," or "husband"}Baal.
9 Therefore, I will take back My grain in its time ^w
and My new wine in its season;
I will take away My wool and linen,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will expose her shame ^x
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from My hands.
11 I will put an end to all her celebrations: ^y
her feasts, ^z New Moons, ^aa and Sabbaths –
all her festivals.
12 I will devastate her vines and fig trees. ^ab
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket, ^ac
and the wild animals will eat them. ^ad
13 And I will punish her for the days of the Baals ^ae
when she burned incense to them, ^af
put on her rings and jewelry, ^ag
and went after her lovers,
but forgot Me. ^ah

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Israel’s Adultery Forgiven

14 Therefore, I am going to persuade her,
lead her to the wilderness, ^ai
and speak tenderly to her. ^{▼▼Lit speak to her heart}
15 There I will give her vineyards back to her ^ak
and make the Valley of Achor ^{▼▼= Trouble
,} ^am
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth, ^an
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 In that day –
this is the Lord’s declaration –

you will call Me, “My husband,” ^ao
and no longer call Me, “My Baal.” ^{▼▼Or My master}
17 For I will remove the names of the Baals
from her mouth;
they will no longer be remembered by their names.
18 On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground. ^aq
I will shatter bow, sword,
and weapons of war in the land ^{▼▼Or war on the earth
,} ^as
and will enable the people to rest securely. ^at
19 I will take you to be My wife forever. ^au
I will take you to be My wife in righteousness,
justice, love, and compassion. ^av
20 I will take you to be My wife in faithfulness,
and you will know ^{▼▼Yahweh/Yah: Or The Lord; the personal name of God in Hebrew; "Yah" is the shortened form of the name.}Yahweh. ^ax
21 On that day I will respond ^ay –
this is the Lord’s declaration.

I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.
22 The earth will respond to the grain, ^az
the new wine, and the oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will sow her ^{▼▼= Israel} in the land for Myself, ^bb
and I will have compassion ^bc
on No Compassion;
I will say ^bd to Not My People: ^be
You are My people, ^bf
and he will say, “You are My God.”