2Plead with your mother, plead—

for she is not my wife,

and I am not her husband—

that she put away her prostitution from her face

and her adultery from between her breasts,*

3or I will strip her naked

and expose her as in the day she was born

and make her like a wilderness

and turn her into a parched land

and kill her with thirst.*

4Upon her children also I will have no pity,

because they are children of prostitution.*

5For their mother has prostituted herself;

she who conceived them has acted shamefully.

For 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.”*

6Therefore I will hedge up heri way with thorns,

and I will build a wall against her

so that she cannot find her paths.*

7She shall pursue her lovers

but not overtake them,

and she shall seek them

but shall not find them.

Then she shall say, “I will go

and return to my first husband,

for it was better with me then than now.”*

8She did not know

that it was I who gave her

the grain, the wine, and the oil

and who lavished upon her silver

and gold that they used for Baal.*

9Therefore I will take back

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.

10Now I will uncover her shame

in the sight of her lovers,

and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.*

11I will put an end to all her mirth,

her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths,

and all her appointed festivals.*

12I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,

of which she said,

“These are my pay,

which my lovers have given me.”

I will make them a forest,

and the wild animals shall devour them.*

13I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,

to whom she offered incense

and decked herself with her rings and jewelry

and went after her lovers

and forgot me, says the Lord.*

14Therefore, I will now allure her

and bring her into the wilderness

and speak tenderly to her.*

15From there I will give her her vineyards

and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.

There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,

as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.*

21On that day I will answer, says the Lord,

I will answer the heavens,

and they shall answer the earth,

22and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,

and they shall answer Jezreel,n^,*

23and I will sow himo for myself in the land.

And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah,p

and I will say to Lo-ammi,q “You are my people,”

and he shall say, “You are my God.”*