- 1
- ¶ SAY to your brethren, Ammi, my people;
and to your sisters, Rekhimtha, beloved.
- 2
- Plead with your mother, plead;
for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband;
let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight and her adulteries from between her breasts,
- 3
- Lest I strip her naked and leave her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness and as a dry land, and cause her to die with thirst.
- 4
- And I will not have mercy upon her children;
for they are the children of whoredoms.
- 5
- For their mother has played the harlot;
she that conceived them has done shamefully;
for she said, I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my clothes and my linen, my oil and everything that I need.
- 6
- ¶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and fence her paths so that she shall not find her paths.
- 7
- And she shall follow after her lovers and shall not overtake them, and she shall seek them, but shall not find them;
then shall she say, I will return and go to my first husband;
for it was better with me then than now.
- 8
- For she did not know that it was I who gave her wheat and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, some of which they made for the images of Baal.
- 9
- Therefore I will return and take away my wheat in its time and my wine in its season, and will take away my wool and my linen which I gave her to cover her nakedness.
- 10
- And now I will uncover her nakedness in the presence of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hands.
- 11
- And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
- 12
- And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, These are presents which my lovers have given me;
and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
- 13
- And I will punish her for the evils of the days of Baal, in which she burned incense to him and decked herself with her earrings and her pearls and went after her lovers and forgot me, says the LORD.
- 14
- ¶ Therefore, behold, I will comfort her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak lovingly to her.
- 15
- And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor that it may open her understanding;
and she shall be humbled there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
- 16
- And it shall be on that day, says the LORD, that you shall call me, my husband, and shall call me no more Baali.
- 17
- For I will take away the name of Baal out of her mouth, and they shall no more remember his name.
- 18
- And on that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of the air and with the creeping things of the ground;
and I will do away with the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and I will make them to dwell in safety.
- 19
- And I will betroth you to me for ever;
yea, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice and in lovingkindness and in mercy.
- 20
- So I will betroth you to me in faithfulness;
and you shall know the LORD.
- 21
- And it shall come to pass on that day, says the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;
- 22
- And the earth shall answer the grain and the wine and the oil;
and they shall answer Jezreel.
- 23
- And I will sow her for myself in the earth;
and I will have mercy on La-ethrakhmath, not beloved, and I will call La-ammi, not my people, Ammi, my people, and they shall say, Thou art my God.
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