Chapter 2

  Say you to your brothers, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. 

  Contend with your mother, contend; for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 

  lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst. 

  Yes, on her children will I have no mercy; for they are children of prostitution; 

  for their mother has played the prostitute; she who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink. 

  Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she shall not find her paths. 

  She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. 

  For she did not know that I gave her the grain, and the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. 

  Therefore will I take back my grain in the time of it, and my new wine in the season of it, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness. 

  Now will I uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand. 

  I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies. 

  I will lay waste her vines and her fig-trees, whereof she has said, These are my hire that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest, and the animals of the field shall eat them. 

  I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says Yahweh. 

  Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her. 

  I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall make answer there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. 

  It shall be at that day, says Yahweh, that you shall call me Ishi, and shall call me no more Baali. 

  For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they shall no more be mentioned by their name. 

  In that day will I make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the land, and will make them to lie down safely. 

  I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 

  I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh. 

  It shall happen in that day, I will answer, says Yahweh, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth; 

  and the earth shall answer the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they shall answer Jezreel. 

  I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, You are my people; and they shall say, [You are] my God.