The Unfaithful Wife

• and to your sister,[fn] “Ruhamah.”[fn]
  • 2 because she is not my wife,
    • and I am not her husband.
• Let her put away her whoring[fn]
  • and her adultery from between her breasts.
  • 3  and expose her like the day when she was born;
• I will make her like the desert
  • and turn her into parched land;
    • I will kill her with thirst.
  • 4  because they are children of whoredom.
• 5 [fn] she who conceived them has acted shamefully,
  • for she said:
    • “I will go after my lovers,
• the ones who give me my bread, my water,
  • my wool, and my flax,
    • my oil, and my drink.”
  • 6  I am going to hedge her path[fn] [fn]
    • and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall against her,
  • and she will not find her paths.
  • 7 [fn] but she will not overtake them;
    • she will seek them and not find them;
• and she will say, “I will go
  • and return to my first husband
  • because it was better for me then than now.”
  • 8  that it was I who gave her
    • grain, new wine, and oil,
• and who gave her silver in abundance,
  • and gold which they made into a Baal.
  • 9  my grain in its time,
    • and my wine in its season;
• and I will take away my wool and my flax,
  • which were to cover her nakedness.
  • 10  before the eyes of her lovers,
    • and no one will rescue her from my hand.
  • 11  her festivals,[fn] her new moons,[fn] and her Sabbaths,[fn]
    • and all her appointed festivals;[fn]
  • 12 [fn] and her fig trees,[fn] of which she said,
    • “They are my payment for prostitution,
  • which my lovers gave to me.”
• I will make them a forest,
  • and the wild animals[fn] of the field will devour them.
  • 13 [fn] for the days of the Baals, to whom she burns incense,
• and she decked herself with her ornamental ring and jewelry,
  • and she went after her lovers, and forgot me
    • —a declaration of Yahweh.
  • 14 am going to allure her and bring her into the desert,
    • and[fn]
  • 15  her vineyards,
    • and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope.
• And there she will respond,
  • as in the days of her youth,
  • just as in the day of her coming out of
    • the land of Egypt.
  • 16 [fn] a declaration of Yahweh—
    • you will call me, “My husband;”[fn]
    • you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”[fn]
  • 17  of the Baals from her mouth,
    • and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.
  • 18  with the animals[fn] of the field,
  • with the birds[fn] of the heaven, and
  • with the creeping things[fn] of the ground;
    • the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.
  • 19  I will take you as a wife for myself in righteousness and in justice,
    • in steadfast love and in mercy.
  • 20 [fn] in faithfulness, and you will know Yahweh.
  • 21 [fn] I will answer the heavens,
    • and they will answer the earth.
  • 22  the grain, the wine, and the oil,
• and they will answer Jezreel.[fn]
  • 23  I will have pity on Lo-ruhama;[fn]
  • I will say to Lo-ammi,[fn]
    • “You are my people,”
  • and he himself will say, “ you are my God.”