1The people are exhorted to forsake idolatry, which is threatened with severe judgments. 14God allureth them with promises of reconciliation.
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1Say ye unto your brethren, aAmmi; and to your sisters, bRu-hamah.
21Plead with your mother, plead: for 2she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her 3whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
3Lest I 1strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her 2as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
4And 1I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.
5For 1their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my 2lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my adrink.
6¶ Therefore, behold, I will 1hedge up thy way with thorns, and amake a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
7And 1she 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, 2I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
8For 1she did not know that I gave her 2corn, and awine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, bwhich they prepared for Baal.
9Therefore will I return, and 1take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will arecover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
10And now 1will I discover her alewdness in the sight of her lovers, and 2none shall deliver her out of mine hand.
11I 1will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, 2her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.
12And I will adestroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, 1These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and 2I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13And 1I will visit upon her 2the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord.
14¶ 1Therefore, behold, I will 2allure her, and bring her into 3the wilderness, and speak acomfortably unto her.
15And 1I will give her her vineyards from thence, and 2the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, 3as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me aIshi; and shalt call me no more bBaali.
17For 1I will take away the names of 2Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
18And in that day 1will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and 2I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and 3will make them to lie down safely.
19And 1I will betroth thee unto me 2for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me 3in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.
20I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and 1thou shalt know the Lord.
21And it shall come to pass in that day, 1I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;
22And the earth shall hear 1the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear 2Jezreel.
23And 1I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I 2will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.