1“Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’ and to your sisters, ‘My loved one!’
2Argue with your mother! Argue, because she is no longer my wife, and I am no longer her husband. Tell her to stop her prostitution and remove her adultery from between her breasts.
3Otherwise, I will strip her naked and make her bare, as she was on the day she was born. I will make her like a wilderness, like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
4Indeed, I will have no mercy on her children, for they are the children of unfaithfulness.
5This is because their mother has acted like a prostitute. The one who conceived them has done shameful things. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drinks.’
6So I will block her path with thorns and build a wall against her so she cannot find her way.
7She will chase her lovers, but she won’t catch them. She will look for them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband, because things were better for me then than they are now.’
8She didn’t realize that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil. I gave her plenty of silver and gold, which they used to worship Baal.
9Therefore, I will take back my grain at the proper time and my new wine in its season. I will take away my wool and my linen, which were meant to cover her nakedness.
10Now I will expose her shameful behavior in front of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my power.
11I will also stop all her celebrations: her feasts, new moons, Sabbaths, and all her special assemblies.
12I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, ‘These are the wages my lovers gave me.’ I will turn them into a forest, and wild animals will eat them.
13I will punish her for the days she worshiped the Baals, when she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but forgot me,” says Yahweh.
14“Therefore, watch! I will win her over, lead her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
15From there, I will give her back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. She will respond to me there as she did in her youth, as in the day she came out of Egypt.
16“In that day,” says Yahweh, “you will call me ‘my husband’ and no longer call me ‘my master.’
17Because I will take the names of the Baals out of her mouth, people will no longer mention them by name.
18At that time, I will make an agreement for them with the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will remove bows, swords, and war from the land, and I will make them live in safety.
19I will commit myself to you forever. Yes, I will commit myself to you with righteousness, justice, unfailing love, and compassion.
20I will commit myself to you with faithfulness; and then you will truly know Yahweh.
21“It will happen on that day,” says Yahweh, “that I will respond. I will speak to the heavens, and the heavens will respond to the earth.
22And the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel.”
23“I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show mercy to her who had not received mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, ‘You are my people.’ And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”