2 a “Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’a

Israel Punished and Restored

2 “Rebuke your mother,b rebuke her,

for she is not my wife,

and I am not her husband.

Let her remove the adulterousc look from her face

and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

3 Otherwise I will stripd her naked

and make her as bare as on the day she was born;e

I will make her like a desert,f

turn her into a parched land,

and slay her with thirst.

4 I will not show my love to her children,g

because they are the children of adultery.h

5 Their mother has been unfaithful

and has conceived them in disgrace.

She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,i

who give me my food and my water,

my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’j

6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;

I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.k

7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;

she will look for them but not find them.l

Then she will say,

‘I will go back to my husbandm as at first,n

for then I was better offo than now.’

8 She has not acknowledgedp that I was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,q

who lavished on her the silver and goldr—

which they used for Baal.s

9 “Therefore I will take away my graint when it ripens,

and my new wineu when it is ready.

I will take back my wool and my linen,

intended to cover her naked body.

10 So now I will exposev her lewdness

before the eyes of her lovers;w

no one will take her out of my hands.x

11 I will stopy all her celebrations:z

her yearly festivals, her New Moons,

her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.a

12 I will ruin her vinesb and her fig trees,c

which she said were her pay from her lovers;d

I will make them a thicket,e

and wild animals will devour them.f

13 I will punish her for the days

she burned incenseg to the Baals;h

she decked herself with rings and jewelry,i

and went after her lovers,j

but me she forgot,k”

declares the Lord.l

14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;

I will lead her into the wildernessm

and speak tenderly to her.

15 There I will give her back her vineyards,

and will make the Valley of Achorb n a door of hope.

There she will respondc o as in the days of her youth,p

as in the day she came up out of Egypt.q

16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,

“you will call me ‘my husband’;r

you will no longer call me ‘my master.d’

17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;s

no longer will their names be invoked.t

18 In that day I will make a covenant for them

with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky

and the creatures that move along the ground.u

Bow and sword and battle

I will abolishv from the land,

so that all may lie down in safety.w

19 I will betrothx you to me forever;

I will betroth you ine righteousness and justice,y

inf love and compassion.z

20 I will betroth you ing faithfulness,

and you will acknowledgea the Lord.b

21 “In that day I will respond,”

declares the Lord—

“I will respondc to the skies,

and they will respond to the earth;

22 and the earth will respond to the grain,

the new wine and the olive oil,d

and they will respond to Jezreel.h e

23 I will plantf her for myself in the land;

I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.i g’

I will say to those called ‘Not my people,j’ ‘You are my people’;h

and they will say, ‘You are my God.i’ ”