Hosea 1-4

Common English Bible

1 The Lord’s word that came to Hosea, Beeri’s son, in the days of Judah’s Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and in the days of Israel’s King Jeroboam, Joash’s son.

God commands Hosea to marry

²When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to him,“Go, marry a prostitute and have children of prostitution, for the people of the land commit great prostitution by deserting the Lord.” ³So Hosea went and took Gomer, Diblaim’s daughter, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. ⁴The Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will destroy the kingdom of the house of Israel. ⁵On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Jezreel Valley.” ⁶Gomer became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Name her No Compassion, because I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel or forgive them. ⁷But I will have compassion on the house of Judah. I, the Lord their God, will save them; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.” ⁸When Gomer finished nursing No Compassion, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. ⁹Then the Lord said, “Name him Not My People because you are not my people, and I am not your God.”^[a]

Hope for the future

¹⁰^[b] Yet the number of the people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it will be said to them, “Children of the living God.” ¹¹The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together, and they will choose one head. They will become fruitful in the land.^[c] The day will be a wonderful one for Jezreel.

Proclamation of wrongdoing

2 ^[d] Say to your brother, My People, and to your sister, Compassion:

²Level a charge against your mother; plead with her!
    She is not my wife,
        and I am not her husband.
    Let her remove prostitution from her presence,
        and adultery from between her breasts,
³    or else I will strip her naked
        and expose her as on the day she was born.
    I will make her like a desert,
        and turn her into a dry land,
        and make her die of thirst.
⁴I will also have no compassion on her children
        because they are children of prostitution.
⁵Their mother has played the prostitute;
        she who conceived them has behaved shamefully.
    She said, “I will seek out my lovers;
        they give me my bread and my water,
        my wool and my linen cloth, my oil and my drink.”

Divine correction

⁶Therefore, I will line her path with thorns;
        and I will build a wall against her,
        so that she can’t find her paths.
⁷She will go after her lovers,
        but she won’t catch up with them;
    she will seek them,
        but she won’t find them.
    Then she will say,
        “I will return to my first husband,
        for I had it better then than now.”
⁸She didn’t know that I gave her
        the corn, the new wine, and the fresh oil,
    and that I gave her much silver,
        and gold that they used for Baal.
⁹So now I will take back
        my corn in its time,
        and my wine in its season;
    and I will take away my wool and my linen cloth,
        which were to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰Now I will uncover her nakedness
        in plain view of her lovers,
        and no one will rescue her from me.
¹¹I will end all her religious celebrations,
        her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days,
        and all her sacred seasons.
¹²I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,
    of which she said,
    “These are my pay,
        which my lovers have given to me.”
    I will change them into a forest,
        and the wild animals will eat them.
¹³I will punish her for the days dedicated to the Baals,
        when she offered sweet-smelling sacrifices to them
        and dressed herself up with rings and jewelry,
        and went after her lovers,
        and forgot me, says the Lord.

Promises: restoration and covenant love

¹⁴Therefore, I will charm her,
        and bring her into the desert,
        and speak tenderly to her heart.
¹⁵From there I will give her vineyards,
        and make the Achor Valley a door of hope.
    There she will respond to me as in the days of her youth,
        like the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Lord.” ¹⁷I will take away the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they will not be mentioned by name anymore. ¹⁸On that day, I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the creeping creatures of the fertile ground. I will do away with the bow, the sword, and war from the land; I will make you lie down in safety.

¹⁹I will take you for my wife forever;
    I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice,
        in devoted love, and in mercy.
²⁰I will take you for my wife in faithfulness;
        and you will know the Lord.

²¹On that day I will answer, says the Lord.
        I will answer the heavens
        and they will answer the earth.
²²The earth will answer the corn, the new wine, and the fresh oil,
        and they will answer Jezreel;
²³I will sow him for myself in the land;
        and I will have compassion on No Compassion,
        and I will say to Not My People, “You are my people”;
        and he will say, “You are my God.”

The lesson of infidelity

3 Then the Lord said to me again, “Go, make love to a woman who has a lover and is involved in adultery, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” ²So I bought her for fifteen pieces of silver, a large amount of barley, and a portion of wine.^[e] ³I said to her, “You must stay with me for many days; you won’t act like a prostitute; you won’t have sex with a man, nor I with you.” ⁴Similarly, the Israelites will remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred standing stone, without a priestly vest or household divine images. ⁵Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; they will come trembling to the Lord and to the Lord’s goodness in the latter days.

Israel’s sins and coming punishment

4 Hear the Lord’s word,
        people of Israel;
    for the Lord has a dispute
        with the inhabitants of the land.
    There’s no faithful love or loyalty,
        and no knowledge of God in the land.
²Swearing, lying, murder,
        together with stealing and adultery are common;
        bloody crime followed by bloody crime.
³Therefore, the earth itself becomes sick,
        and all who live on it grow weak;
        together with the wild animals
            and the birds in the sky,
        even the fish of the sea are dying.
⁴Yet let no one protest,
        and let no one complain.

    Listen, priest, I am angry with your people.^[f]
⁵You will stumble by day;
        and at nighttime so will your prophet,
        and I will destroy your mother.
⁶My people are destroyed
        from lack of knowledge.
    Since you have rejected knowledge,
        so I will reject you from serving me as a priest.
    Since you have forgotten the Instruction of your God,
        so also I will forget your children.
⁷The more they increased,
        the more they sinned against me;
        they exchanged their glory for shame.
⁸They feed on the sin of my people;
        they set their hearts on evil things.
⁹The priest will be just like the people;
    I will punish them for their ways,
        and judge them for their deeds.
¹⁰They will eat but not be satisfied;
    they will have sex like prostitutes,
        but they will not have children,
    because they have rejected the Lord
        to devote themselves to ¹¹false religious practices.

Description of Israel’s idolatry

    Wine and new wine
        destroy understanding.
¹²My people take advice from a piece of wood,
    and their divining rod gives them predictions.
        A spirit of prostitution has led them astray;
        they have left God to follow other gods.
¹³They offer sacrifices on mountaintops,
        and make entirely burned offerings on hills;
    they offer sacrifices under various green trees,
        because their shade is pleasant.
    Therefore, your daughters act like prostitutes,
        and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
¹⁴I will not punish your daughters because they act like prostitutes,
        nor your daughters-in-law because they commit adultery;
    for the men themselves visit prostitutes,
        and offer sacrifices with consecrated workers at temples;
    so now the people without sense must come to ruin.
¹⁵Israel, even though you act like a prostitute,
        don’t let Judah become guilty.
    Don’t enter into Gilgal,
        or go up to Beth-aven,
        and don’t swear, “As the Lord lives.”
¹⁶Like a stubborn cow Israel is stubborn.
Now the Lord will tend them,^[g]
        as the Lord tends a lamb in a pasture.
¹⁷Ephraim is associated with idols—
        let him alone!
¹⁸Though they have stopped drinking,
        they continue to behave like prostitutes;
        indeed, they “love”; shame is their pride.
¹⁹The wind has wrapped her in its wings;
        they will be ashamed of their sacrifices.