# Hosea 2 (New King James Version)
The Lord's Love for His Unfaithful People

##### Chapter 2
###### 1 Say to your brethren, 'My people,'  
And to your sisters, 'Mercy _is shown._'God's Unfaithful People

###### 2 "Bring charges against your mother, bring charges;  
For she _is_ not My wife, nor _am_ I her Husband!  
Let her put away her harlotries from her sight,  
And her adulteries from between her breasts;  

###### 3 Lest I strip her naked  
And expose her, as in the day she was born,  
And make her like a wilderness,  
And set her like a dry land,  
And slay her with thirst.

###### 4 "I will not have mercy on her children,  
For they _are_ the children of harlotry.  

###### 5 For their mother has played the harlot;  
She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.  
For she said, 'I will go after my lovers,  
Who give _me_ my bread and my water,  
My wool and my linen,  
My oil and my drink.'

###### 6 "Therefore, behold,  
I will hedge up your way with thorns,  
And wall her in,  
So that she cannot find her paths.  

###### 7 She will chase her lovers,  
But not overtake them;  
Yes, she will seek them, but not find _them._  
Then she will say,  
'I will go and return to my first husband,  
For then _it was_ better for me than now.'  

###### 8 For she did not know  
That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,  
And multiplied her silver and gold--  
_Which_ they prepared for Baal.

###### 9 "Therefore I will return and take away  
My grain in its time  
And My new wine in its season,  
And will take back My wool and My linen,  
_Given_ to cover her nakedness.  

###### 10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,  
And no one shall deliver her from My hand.  

###### 11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease,  
Her feast days,  
Her New Moons,  
Her Sabbaths--  
All her appointed feasts.

###### 12 "And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,  
Of which she has said,  
'These _are_ my wages that my lovers have given me.'  
So I will make them a forest,  
And the beasts of the field shall eat them.  

###### 13 I will punish her  
For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense.  
She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry,  
And went after her lovers;  
But Me she forgot," says the Lord.God's Mercy on His People

###### 14 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her,  
Will bring her into the wilderness,  
And speak comfort to her.  

###### 15 I will give her her vineyards from there,  
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;  
She shall sing there,  
As in the days of her youth,  
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

###### 16 "And it shall be, in that day,"  
Says the Lord,  
"_That_ you will call Me 'My Husband,'  
And no longer call Me 'My Master,'  

###### 17 For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,  
And they shall be remembered by their name no more.  

###### 18 In that day I will make a covenant for them  
With the beasts of the field,  
With the birds of the air,  
And _with_ the creeping things of the ground.  
Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth,  
To make them lie down safely.

###### 19 "I will betroth you to Me forever;  
Yes, I will betroth you to Me  
In righteousness and justice,  
In lovingkindness and mercy;  

###### 20 I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,  
And you shall know the Lord.

###### 21 "It shall come to pass in that day  
_That_ I will answer," says the Lord;  
"I will answer the heavens,  
And they shall answer the earth.  

###### 22 The earth shall answer  
With grain,  
With new wine,  
And with oil;  
They shall answer Jezreel.  

###### 23 Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth,  
And I will have mercy on _her who had_ not obtained mercy;  
Then I will say to _those who were_ not My people,  
'You _are_ My people!'  
And they shall say, '_You are_ my God!' "