CHAPTER 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.
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.
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.’
Therefore,
behold,
I will hedge up
her path
with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so she cannot
find
her way.
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.’
For she
does not
acknowledge
that
it was I
who gave
her
grain,
new wine
and oil,
who lavished
her
with silver
and gold—
which was crafted
for Baal.
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.
And then
I will expose
her lewdness
in the sight
of her lovers,
and no
one
will deliver her
out of My hands.
I will put an end
to all
her exultation:
her feasts,
New Moons,
and Sabbaths—
all
her appointed feasts.
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.
I will punish
her
for the days
of the Baals
when
she burned incense to them,
when she decked herself
with rings
and jewelry,
and went
after
her lovers.
But Me
she forgot,”
declares
the LORD.
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.
In that
day,”
declares
the LORD,
“you will call Me
‘my husband,’
and no
longer
call Me
‘my Master.’
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 weapons of war
in
the land,
and will make them lie down
in safety.
So I will betroth you
to Me
forever;
I will betroth you
in righteousness
and justice,
in loving devotion
and compassion.
“On that
day
I will respond—”
declares
the LORD—
“I will respond
to the heavens,
and they
will respond
to the earth.
And the earth
will respond
to the grain,
to the new wine
and oil,
and they
will respond
to Jezreel.
And I will sow her
for Myself
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.’”