“Call your brothers My-People and your sisters Shown-Tender-Mercy.
Go to court. Take legal action against your mother
and put her on trial.
For she is no longer my wife,
and I am no longer her husband.
She must remove the symbols of prostitution from her face
and the seductive charms of her adulteries from between her breasts.
If not, I will strip her naked and humiliate her
and expose her nakedness as on the day she was born.
I will make her as bare as the desert,
turn her into a barren land,
and let her die of thirst.
I will feel no pity for her children,
since they are the children of her shameless prostitution.
Yes, their mother has prostituted herself,
the one who conceived them has disgraced herself.
For she said, ‘I will chase after my lovers;
they will provide all I need:
my robe, my clothing, my oil, and my wine.’
Behold! I will block her way with thorns
and build up a wall against her to stop her in her tracks.
Then when she tries to chase her lovers,
she will not be able to catch them.
When she looks for them, she will not find them.
Eventually, she’ll say, ‘I must go back to my own husband.
I was much better off then than I am now!’
Yet, she never understood
that I was the one who was giving her
the grain, sweet wine, and olive oil.
I lavished upon her an abundance of silver and gold,
which she took and made into idols of Baal.
So I will take back my grain at harvest time
and my new wine when the grapes are ripe.
I will snatch away my wool and my flax
used for clothing to cover her naked body.
Then very soon I will publicly expose her disgrace
before her lovers’ gawking eyes —
so that no man will steal her from me.
I will put an end to all her joyful festivities,
her feasts, her new moons and her Sabbaths,
and her celebrations will all cease.
I will ruin her vines and fig trees
of which she used to say,
‘These are the fees that my lovers pay to me.’
I will turn vines and fig trees into a jungle
and make their fruit nothing but food for wild beasts.
I will make her pay for the feast days,
feasts for her to burn incense to the Baals.
She got all dressed up and chased after her lovers,
adorned with earrings and necklaces for them.
And me? She has forgotten about me.
This is YAHWEH speaking to you!”
“Behold, I am going to romance her
and draw her into the wilderness;
I will speak tenderly to her there with words of love
and win her heart back to me.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Trouble an open door to hope.
There she will respond to me and sing as when she was young,
as on the day when she came up from Egypt.
“And I, YAHWEH, declare that when that day comes,
you will call me ‘My Husband’
and no longer call me ‘My Master.’
I will banish the names of the Baals from her lips,
and she will never mention their names again.
When that day comes, I will make a covenant for you, my people,
with all the birds and wild animals
and creatures that creep upon the ground.
I will break the bow and the sword
and remove the weapons of war from the land,
and I will let you live in peace and safety.
I will take you to myself as my wife forever.
I will make you mine in righteousness and justice,
with unfailing love and tender affection.
Yes, I will commit myself to you in faithfulness.
Then you will know me intimately as YAHWEH.
When that day comes, I will be the God who responds,”
declares YAHWEH.
“I will respond to the heavens,
and the heavens will respond to the earth,
and the earth will respond to the grain, the wine, and the olive oil,
and they will respond to Israel.
I will sow her in the land as my very own.
I will show my tender mercy to No-Tender-Mercy.
I will declare to Not-My-People my words of endearment:
‘You are my people,’
and they will say to me, ‘You are my One-and-Only God.’ ”
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