1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, ain the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of bJeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.
Hosea’s Wife and Children
2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, c“Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have dchildren of whoredom, for ethe land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” 3 So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 And the Lord said to him, “Call his name Jezreel, for in just a little while fI will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and gI will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 And on that day hI will break the bow of Israel iin the Valley of Jezreel.”
6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, j“Call her name No Mercy,1 for kI will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. 7 But lI will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I mwill not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”
8 When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. 9 And the Lord said, n“Call his name Not My People,2 for oyou are not my people, and I am not your God.”3
10 4 Yet pthe number of the children of Israel shall be qlike the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. rAnd sin the place where it was said to them, o“You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, t“Children5 of uthe living God.” 11 And vthe children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and wthey shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
Israel’s Unfaithfulness Punished
1 6 Say to your brothers, x“You are my people,”7 and to your sisters, y“You have received mercy.”8
2 “Plead with your mother, plead—
for zshe is not my wife,
and I am not her husband—
that she put away aher whoring from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts;
3 lest bI strip her naked
and make her as cin the day she was born,
and dmake her like a wilderness,
and make her like a parched land,
and kill her with thirst.
4 eUpon her children also I will have no mercy,
fbecause they are children of whoredom.
5 For gtheir mother has played the whore;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For hshe said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who igive me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore jI will hedge up her9 way with thorns,
and kI will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
7 She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.
lThen she shall say,
‘I will go and return to mmy first husband,
lfor it was better for me then than now.’
8 And nshe did not know
that it was oI who gave her
pthe grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished on qher silver and gold,
rwhich they used for Baal.
9 Therefore sI will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season,
and sI will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now tI will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
11 uAnd I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her vnew moons, her vSabbaths,
and all her wappointed feasts.
12 And xI will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
yof which she said,
‘These are zmy wages,
which my lovers have given me.’
I will make them a forest,
aand the beasts of the field shall devour them.
13 And bI will punish her for cthe feast days of the Baals
when she burned offerings to them
and dadorned herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, declares the Lord.
The Lord’s Mercy on Israel
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and ebring her into the wilderness,
and fspeak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor10 a door of hope.
And there she shall answer gas in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 “And hin that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ 17 For iI will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 18 And jI will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And kI will abolish11 the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in lsafety. 19 And I will betroth you to me mforever. nI will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 nI will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And oyou shall know the Lord.
21 “And pin that day qI will answer, declares the Lord,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer rJezreel,12
23 and sI will sow her for myself in the land.
And tI uwill have mercy on No Mercy,13
and vI will say to Not My People,14 w‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
Hosea Redeems His Wife
1 And the Lord said to me, x“Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a yhomer and a lethech15 of barley. 3 And I said to her, “You must zdwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.” 4 For the children of Israel zshall dwell many days awithout king or prince, bwithout sacrifice or cpillar, without dephod or ehousehold gods. 5 Afterward fthe children of Israel shall return and gseek the Lord their God, and hDavid their king, iand they shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness in the jlatter days.
The Lord Accuses Israel
1 kHear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel,
for lthe Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or steadfast love,
and mno knowledge of God in the land;
2 nthere is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery;
they break all bounds, and obloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Therefore pthe land mourns,
and all who dwell in it languish,
qand also the beasts of the field
and the birds of the heavens,
rand even the fish of the sea are taken away.
4 sYet let no one contend,
and let none accuse,
for with you is tmy contention, O priest.16
5 You shall stumble by day;
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night;
and I will destroy uyour mother.
6 My people are destroyed vfor lack of knowledge;
wbecause you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you xfrom being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
yI also will forget your children.
7 zThe more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
aI will change their glory into shame.
8 bThey feed on the sin17 of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
9 cAnd it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.
10 dThey shall eat, but not be satisfied;
they shall play the whore, but not multiply,
because they have forsaken the Lord
to cherish 11 whoredom, wine, and new wine,
which etake away the understanding.
12 My people finquire of a piece of wood,
and their walking staff gives them oracles.
For ga spirit of whoredom has led them astray,
and they have left their God to play the whore.
13 hThey sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
and burn offerings on the hills,
iunder oak, poplar, and terebinth,
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the whore,
and your brides commit adultery.
14 I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,
nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for jthe men themselves go aside with prostitutes
and sacrifice with kcult prostitutes,
and a people lwithout understanding shall come to ruin.
15 Though you play the whore, O mIsrael,
let not mJudah become guilty.
nor go up to pBeth-aven,
and swear not, “As the Lord lives.”
16 Like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
like a lamb in a broad pasture?
17 qEphraim is joined to idols;
rleave him alone.
18 When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring;
stheir rulers18 dearly love shame.
19 tA wind has wrapped them19 in its wings,
and they shall ube ashamed because of their sacrifices.
Do Not Pass Judgment on One Another
1 As for mthe one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 nOne person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and olet not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4 pWho are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master1 that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5 qOne person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. rEach one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since she gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For tnone of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, uwhether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ vdied and lived again, that he might be Lord both wof the dead and of the living.
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For wwe will all stand before xthe judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,
y“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess2 to God.”
12 So then zeach of us will give an account of himself to God.
Do Not Cause Another to Stumble
13 aTherefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide bnever to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. 14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus cthat nothing is unclean in itself, dbut it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. 15 For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, eyou are no longer walking in love. fBy what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. 16 gSo do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. 17 hFor the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but iof righteousness and jpeace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 Whoever thus serves Christ is kacceptable to God and approved by men. 19 So then let us lpursue what makes for peace and for mmutual upbuilding.
20 nDo not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. oEverything is indeed clean, but pit is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. 21 qIt is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.3 22 The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. rBlessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.4
