1Say to your brothers, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
2Plead with your mother, plead with her. She is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put her prostitution away from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts.
3If she will not, I will strip her naked. I will leave her bare as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
4I will show no mercy to her children, for they are the children of prostitution.
5Their mother has been a prostitute. She who carried them has acted shamefully. She said, "I will go after my lovers. They give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink."
6So look, I will block her way with thorns. I will build a wall, so that she cannot find her paths.
7She will chase her lovers, but she will not catch them. She will look for them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, "I will go back to my first husband, for I was better off then than now."
8She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, and the wine, and the oil. I gave her more and more silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
9So I will come back and take away my grain at harvest time, and my wine in its season. I will take back my wool and my flax, which were given to cover her nakedness.
10Now I will uncover her shame in front of her lovers, and no one will rescue her out of my hand.
11I will also put an end to all her joy: her feast days, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals.
12I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, "These are my wages that my lovers gave me." I will turn them into a forest, and the wild animals will eat them.
13I will punish her for the days of the Baalim, when she burned incense to them. She put on her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the LORD.
14So look, I will win her back. I will bring her into the desert, and speak tenderly to her.
15From there I will give her her vineyards, and the valley of Achor as a door of hope. She will sing there, as in the days of her youth, as on the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16On that day, says the LORD, you will call me Ishi, and you will no longer call me Baali.
17For I will take the names of the Baalim out of her mouth, and they will not be remembered by their name any more.
18On that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, and with the birds of the sky, and with the things that creep on the ground. I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the land, and I will make them lie down in safety.
19I will take you to be my wife for ever. Yes, I will take you to be my wife in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving kindness, and in mercies.
20I will take you to be my wife in faithfulness, and you will know the LORD.
21On that day I will answer, says the LORD. I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth.
22The earth will answer the grain, and the wine, and the oil; and they will answer Jezreel.
23I will sow her for myself in the land. I will show mercy to her who had received no mercy. I will say to those who were not my people, "You are my people," and they will say, "You are my God."