Israel’s Adultery Rebuked

¹ “Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’

and of your sisters,^* ‘My loved one.’^*

² Rebuke your mother,

rebuke her,

for she is not My wife,

and I am not her husband.

Let her remove the adultery from her face

and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

³ Otherwise, I will strip her naked^*

and expose her like the day of her birth.

I will make her like a desert

and turn her into a parched land,

and I will let her die of thirst.

⁴ I will have no compassion on her children,

because they are the children of adultery.

⁵ For their mother has played the harlot

and has conceived them^* in disgrace.

For she thought,

‘I will go after my lovers,

who give me bread and water,

wool and linen, oil and drink.’

⁶ Therefore, behold,

I will hedge up her path with thorns;

I will enclose her with a wall,

so she cannot find her way.

⁷ She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;

she will seek them but not find them.

Then she will say,

‘I will return to my first husband,

for then I was better off than now.’

⁸ For she does not acknowledge

that it was I who gave her grain,

new wine, and oil,

who lavished on her silver and gold —

which they crafted for Baal.

⁹ Therefore I will take back My grain in its time

and My new wine in its season;

I will take away My wool and linen,

which were given to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And then I will expose her lewdness

in the sight^* of her lovers,

and no one will deliver her

out of My hands.

¹¹ I will put an end to all her exultation:

her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—^*

all her appointed feasts.

¹² I will destroy her vines and fig trees,

which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers.

So I will make them into a thicket,

and the beasts of the field will devour them.

¹³ I will punish her for the days of the Baals

when she burned incense to them,

when she adorned herself with rings^* and jewelry,

and went after her lovers.

But Me she forgot,”

declares the LORD.

God’s Mercy to Israel

¹⁴ “Therefore, behold, I will allure her

and lead her to the wilderness,

and speak to her tenderly.

¹⁵ There I will give back her vineyards

and make the Valley of Achor

into a gateway of hope.

There she will respond as she did

in the days of her youth,

as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

¹⁶ In that day,”

declares the LORD,

“you will call Me ‘my Husband,’

and no longer call Me ‘my Master.’

¹⁷ For I will remove from her lips the names of the Baals;

no longer will their names be invoked.

¹⁸ On that day I will make a covenant^* for them

with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air

and the creatures that crawl on the ground.

And I will abolish bow and sword

and battle in the land,

and will make them lie down in safety.

¹⁹ So I will betroth you^* to Me forever;

I will betroth you^* in righteousness and justice,

in loving devotion and compassion.

²⁰ And I will betroth you in faithfulness,

and you will know the LORD.”

²¹ “On that day I will respond —”

declares the LORD —

“I will respond to the heavens,

and they will respond to the earth.

²² And the earth will respond to the grain,

to the new wine and oil,

and they will respond to Jezreel.

²³ And I will sow her as My own in the land,

and I will have compassion on ‘No Compassion.’

I will say to those called ‘Not My People,’

‘You are My people,’

and they will say,

‘You are my God.’”