Yahweh gave Hosea these messages during the years that Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah, and when Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

When Yahweh spoke for the first time through the prophet Hosea, he said, “Go and marry a prostitute. She will have children because she has given herself to other men. When you marry a prostitute, this will show how my people have been so shamefully unfaithful to me. It will show them how they have left me, their God.”

So Hosea married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

Yahweh said to Hosea, “Give your baby the name Jezreel, because I will soon punish the family members of King Jehu for the murders that he committed in the city of Jezreel. I will also bring the kingdom of Israel to an end.

On that day I will destroy the fighting strength of the army of Israel, there in the Valley of Jezreel.”

Gomer soon became pregnant again, and this time she gave birth to a daughter. Then Yahweh spoke to him, “Give her the name Lo-Ruhamah, which means ‘no mercy,’ because I will no longer have any mercy for the people of Israel, and I will not forgive them for even one sin they have committed.

But I will have mercy on the people of Judah. I will save them—but not by deadly weapons, the bow, the sword, or battle. I will not save them by armies or by strong horses and those who ride on them. Instead, I, Yahweh myself, will save them.”

After Gomer had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she became pregnant again and gave birth to a son.

Yahweh said “Give him the name Lo-Ammi, which means ‘not my people,’ because you, O Israel, are not my people—and I will no longer protect you as your God.

One day in the future, the people of Israel will be as numerous as the grains of sand by the sea. No one will be able to count them. I have said to Israel, ‘You are not my people,’—but one day I will say to them, ‘You are the people whom I will protect and love.’

On that day I, Yahweh, will gather all the people of Judah and bring them together with all the people of Israel. They will choose from among themselves a single leader, and they will go out of that land in which they were held as exiles. On that day they will say, ‘Great is the day of Jezreel!’ (Jezreel means, ‘God plants his people in his land.’)

Call your male fellow Israelites, ‘You are Yahweh’s people,’ and call your female fellow Israelites, ‘Yahweh has been kind to you.’”

Yahweh said to me, “I want you to accuse Israel, who is like a mother to you, of being like an unfaithful wife to me.

Tell Israel that they must stop acting like a prostitute; she must stop worshiping idols.

Israel must stop worshiping idols. She must stop acting like a woman who leaves her husband and goes to other men.

I will take her clothes off her and make her naked like she was when she was born.

I will make her like the barren wilderness—dry and lifeless; I will make her like a woman dying from thirst in the desert.

she is like a woman who has had these children from doing shameful things with other men.

Israel decided to hurry after these idols whom she loved, to worship other gods.

She thought that it was those gods who gave her bread and water.

She thought that it was those gods who gave her wool, linen, and olive oil, and also wine to drink.

Then, like a prostitute who wants to return to her husband, she will say to me, ‘I will go back to you, the one I loved at first,

The people will say this, because they did not know that it was I, Yahweh, who had given them their grain, new wine, and olive oil.

It was I who had given them much silver and gold so they would become wealthy.

But then they made all that gold and silver into objects to use in worshiping the idol Baal.

Therefore I will take away from Israel all the grain I gave them.

When the wheat is ready for harvest, I will keep them from getting it.

I will take away from them all the wool and linen I gave them to make clothes for themselves,

I will treat Israel as a man treats his wife when he finds her with other men.

I will make the people in Israel stop holding their celebrations;

They will no longer be able to hold the festivals scheduled throughout the year.

This is because Israel is like a woman who says, ‘These were the things that my lovers gave me in payment.’

I, Yahweh, will turn those places into a forest, a thicket in which no vines can grow,

I will punish this woman named Israel for all the times that she burned incense to worship the Baal idols.

She decorated herself with rings and jewelry, as a prostitute would adorn herself for her lovers.

She used to follow her lovers—like Israel has gone after the Baals—those false gods that she worshiped.

“I will lead her into the wilderness and tell her that I love her.

She will answer me with love and delight, as it was back in the first days when we first loved each other—

Israel will call me, ‘My Husband,’ as a woman would say to her human husband.

She will no longer call out to a god, ‘My Baal,’ but she will call out to me as ‘My Husband.’

I will not allow Israel to speak the names of the images of Baal that she used to worship.

My people will forget the names of those Baals and their idols, and my people Israel will never worship them again.

I will promise to remove all the weapons that are used for fighting battles,

the bows and arrows, and the swords, and every war, I will take them all away and destroy all of them.

I will promise myself to you, by doing what is right, and by loving what is just.

I promise to love you and to show you kindness even when you do not deserve it.

And the ground will provide grain, new wine and olive trees, and they will grow for the people of Israel.

I will show my love to those people whom I called ‘Not my People’.

Then Yahweh said to me, “Go and love a woman, even though she is loved by another man, and she is also unfaithful to her husband. You will be like me, because I love the people of Israel, even though they worship other gods and eat raisin cakes in their honor.”

Even though she was a slave, owned by another person, I bought her for 170 grams of silver, and 330 liters of barley grain.

Then I said to her, “You will live with me from now on. You will no longer be a prostitute who sleeps with various men. You will not belong to any other man, only to me, and I will be faithful to you and live with you for the rest of my life.”

When I do these things, this is to show that the people of Israel will live for a long time and not have any king ruling over them. They will have no prince, no sacrifices or pillars set up for worship, ephods or idols in their houses.

After some time, the people of Israel will return to Yahweh; they will hope that he will receive them back. They will hope to have a descendant of David for their king again. In the later time, they will come to Yahweh to honor him and tremble before him because of his goodness to them.

“You people of Israel, Yahweh is accusing you, you who live in this place.”

Because of what the people are doing, the land is now a wilderness.

You must not allow anyone to correct another person; no one has that right, because everyone is guilty.

I promise you, I will destroy Israel, who is like a mother to you.

My people are perishing because you priests have refused to understand me.

And why do you understand me so little? Because you have rejected the things I have instructed you to do.

Look at what you have forgotten: You have forgotten the instructions that I, your God, gave to you.

When other people sin, they bring sacrifices to me, some of which you eat.

You all will eat, but you will never get enough. You will always be hungry.

They will continue to sleep with other women, but the women will not conceive,

All these things have made it impossible for you to know right from wrong.

They ask their walking staffs to tell them which way they should go!

They are always wanting to sin in sexual ways, so they have stopped obeying me, the God whom they should worship.

They worship other gods in the places on the tops of the mountains where they have set up idols. They burn offerings to the idols up on those hills—

in all the places where they worship those idols—under the oak trees, poplar trees, and the terebinth trees—

Following your example, your daughters decided to become prostitutes,

and they offer sacrifices in the houses of idols where there are prostitutes.

It is true: “A people who have not lived as they were taught to live, will come to destruction.”

You people of Judah, do not go to Gilgal. Do not go up to Beth Aven to worship idols there.

Do not make solemn oaths, calling on me to make good on your promises, adding to your vows the words, ‘As Yahweh lives!”

Someone will attack them; he will be like a whirlwind that lifts them up and carries them away to another place.

Only then will they be ashamed because they gave offerings to the idols.”

The things you have done have been like a trap for the people at Mizpah.

The things you have done have become like a net spread out to catch the people who live on Mount Tabor.

Those who rebelled against me have now killed so many that they are standing deep in their blood. I tell you that I will punish them all.

Ephraim and Israel are not able to ask me to forgive them, because of what they have done.

The sins that the people of Israel have committed are making them faithless to Yahweh.

They are coming to sacrifice sheep and cattle to him from their flocks and herds.

I will punish the people of Ephraim and turn their city into a pile of rubble.

This is my promise to the tribes of Israel—I pledge to you all that I will do this.

The leaders of Judah are as bad as people who steal farmland by moving boundary markers;

Ephraim will suffer greatly; the people will perish when I punish them,

but he will treat our wounds and bind them up so they will heal.

But Yahweh says, “What can I do with you, you people of Ephraim?

You love me for just as long as the clouds come in the morning before they disappear again.

You love me for just as long as the dew stays before the warm sun shines on it.

and it was as though I had cut you into pieces when they spoke the messages I gave them.

It was as though I had killed you with the words I spoke to you.

I told you by the prophets that I was angry with you, and they told you this.”

than when you give me offerings that the priests burn on the altar.

the covenant that they made with me and that I, Yahweh, made with them—they broke it.

As robbers make their plans to hide and then rob someone walking past them,

so are the priests—they band together making their plans, just like the robbers,

I have set for you a time when I will separate out your good people from your bad people.

That will be the day when I bring back the blessings and riches of my people once more.”

they are like lawless men who attack people who are walking in the streets.

But they do not take a moment to think that I, Yahweh, see everything they do.

once he lights the fire, he does not need to put any more wood on it,

At the king’s festivals, his officials do outrageous things because they are drunk with wine,

But these same officials then set about making plans to murder the king.

but all the people are like a flat cake that is only cooked on one side; they are weak.

People who come from far away have taken away Israel’s strength.

The nation is gorwing very weak, like an old man whose hair is turning gray.

They will not try to persuade me to have mercy on them, no matter what happens to them.

Israel is like a foolish bird, a dove that anyone can easily deceive.

He calls out first to Egypt, and then like a bird, he flies up to Assyria.

I will bring them down as a hunter brings down birds from the air into a net.

They do not cry out to me; they do not call to me from their hearts;

They meet together to ask their idols for their grain and new wine.

Their officers will be killed by their enemies’ swords; they will die because they have insulted me.

They took their silver and gold and formed them into the idols they worshiped,

The prophet says, “Yes, Yahweh has rejected your idol, you people of Samaria—an idol made in the form of a calf!”

Yahweh says, “Perhaps these people will never again be innocent of evildoing. I am very angry with them!

The shame of it is that this idol came from Israel! A craftsman made it.

This is because these people do useless things, so something terrible will destroy them.

And even if it does, foreign soldiers will eat everything it produces.

The people of Israel have tried to pay other nations to protect them.

They will begin to become poor because they will have to pay money to Assyria’s king.

The people of Ephraim have built many altars on which to offer sacrifices for their sins;

however, these altars have become places where the people commit terrible sins against me.

Even if I wrote out for the people of Israel my laws ten thousand times,

I will think about their sins and will punish the people for them.

The people of Israel have forgotten me, the God who made them a nation. Instead of honoring me, they have built huge homes to live in.

And instead of worshiping Yahweh, the people of Judah have built walls around their cities for protection.

I will send a fire that will destroy all their palaces and all their fortified cities.”

Hosea says this: Do not be happy, O Israel; do not celebrate like other people groups!

You have been unfaithful to your God. You have refused to do what he told you.

You will have no hope for any new wine, for the vines will fail you.

The people of Israel will not continue to live in the land that Yahweh has chosen as his own.

And in Assyria they will have to eat the kind of food that God had forbidden them to eat.

Their sacrifices will be as unacceptable to God as the food that people eat at funerals;

they will not be able to bring it into Yahweh’s house to offer it to him.

There, in a country far from your home, you will not be able to celebrate the festivals that Yahweh commanded you to celebrate.

You will die there, and the people in the city of Memphis will bury you.

and lost when the desert plants grow into your homes and take them over.

the time has come in which God will pay you back for every sin you have committed.

And all you people of Israel must realize that these things will happen.

and those who you thought were inspired by God are actually insane.

True prophets are people whom God has assigned to guard the people of Israel.

Yahweh says, “When I found Israel, it was like someone finding grapes growing in the wilderness.

When I saw your ancestors, they were like the very first figs that appear in the year, figs growing on a young fig tree.

I will make their women so they cannot give birth, no woman will be pregnant, and no one will even conceive a child in the womb.

they were like Tyre; they were like a tree planted in a beautiful meadow.

But they will have to lead their own children out to their enemies, who will slaughter them.”

Yahweh says, “Because of all the wicked things my people did at Gilgal,

With that money they made more stone columns in honor of their idols.

and he promises to destroy those pillars beside which they worshiped their false gods.

They say, “We have no king now because we did not honor or respect Yahweh.

their sort of justice kills people, as poisonous weeds in a field would do.

Those people of Samaria tremble with fear because of what happened to the calf idols at Beth Aven.

for having trusted in the advice they received by consulting idols.

He will be like a small piece of wood that floats away down a stream.

The hilltop places known for their wickedness—altars where the people worshiped idols—will all be destroyed.

Thorns and thistles will grow and cover all the altars that were in Samaria.

People of Israel, since the days of Gibeah you have been sinning;

it is as if you have been living there ever since then, because you think as they did.

that loves to thresh grain, separating out the grain from the chaff,

so that he may come and rescue you because he does what is right.

You have sinned wickedly, and now you will have to bear the consequences.

You told lies, and now you must suffer the results of the lies you told.

when mothers were killed while they were holding their children.

That is what will be done to you, you people of the city of Bethel,

Yahweh says, “When the nation of Israel was like a young man, I loved him.

Day after day they offered their sacrifices to the idols named Baal,

But it was I who taught them to do everything good, as a father teaches his son to walk.

But they did not understand that I was the one who was taking care of them.

With kindness I guided them, with the tender cords of human kindness I led them.

They worked very hard, like a yoke of oxen pulling a plow, but I made their yoke light and loosened its weight on their jaws, so they did not suffer pain.

because they refused to turn back to me and worship me as their God.

their enemies will destroy the bars that keep their gates closed and safe.

Their enemies will destroy the people of Israel and put an end to all the plans they made.

I do not want to act toward you as I acted toward Admah or make you like Zeboyim—

I do not want to destroy you, the people of my Israel, whom I love.

I will let them live in their own homes once more, in the land of Israel.

But the people of Judah they still obey me and are faithful to me, the Holy One.”

They tell more and more lies; they do more and more acts of violence.

Yahweh is also accusing the people of Judah of breaking his covenant.

He will punish those descendants of Jacob for what they have done.

When Jacob was in his mother’s womb, he grabbed his brother Esau’s heel because he wanted to take his brother’s place and be the firstborn.

The merchants are wicked; they use scales that give wrong weights and measures,

and we have found ways to make ourselves even more wealthy than we are now.

In all our buying and selling, no one can see anything wrong in what we do.”

I will force you away from your homes and make you live in tents again,

Many times I spoke to the prophets and gave them messages, for them to give to you;

The prophet says that if it is true that the people in the region of Gilead are wicked,

but these altars will be pulled down and turned into piles of stones in their fields.

he, whose name God would later change to Israel, worked many years so he could marry a woman.

their Lord says that they are guilty of the death of many, and that their guilt remains on them.

He will pay them back because they have insulted him with their shameful deeds.

Yahweh says, “When the leaders of Israel spoke, the people trembled;

that the men of Israel sacrifice to these calf-idols and kiss them to worship them.

They will disappear as easily as the chaff that the wind blows away from the threshing place.

They will disappear as easily as the smoke that goes out of the chimney.

I will attack you like a leopard that waits beside the road to suddenly jump on a traveler.

I will come against you like a female bear when someone steals her cubs,

You no longer have any of the rulers whom you asked me to give you.

When I gave you a king, I gave him to you because I was angry with you.

I have kept track of all the wicked deeds that you people of Israel have committed; I have recorded all your guilt.

The prophet Hosea says: “Even though you people of Israel are wealthier than those of Judah,

The people of the city of Samaria are guilty because they have rebelled against God.

they will thrown their children far down to the ground and kill them;

So now, return to Yahweh, and think about how you will confess your sins to him.

Please accept us back, so that we may praise you in our words and song.

Even children with no fathers look to you, Yahweh, and they find that you are kind to them.”

Yahweh says, “I will forgive these people for having stopped honoring me;

and they will please others as much as the fragrant cedar trees in Lebanon.

They will return and live under the protection that Israel has from me;

They will be successful like a field of grain that grows well, like grapevines that are growing well.

They will become as famous as the wine that people produce in the land of Lebanon.

You people of Israel, I will completely stop you from worshiping idols.

It is I, Yahweh, who will take care of you. No idol can do that.

I am like a cypress tree that grows and stays fresh the entire year;

Every wise person will understand the things about which I have written;

those who have understanding will study these things and pay careful attention to them.