Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Hosea 2:2-12

"Plead with your mother, plead -
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband -
that she put away her whoring from her face,
and her adultery from between
her breasts,
or 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.
Upon her children also I will
have no pity,
because they are children of whoredom.
For their mother had played
the whore;
she who conveiced 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."
Therefore I will hedge up her
way with thorns;
and I will build a wall
against her,
so that she cannot find her
paths.
She 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."
She 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.
Therefore 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.
Now I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out
of my hand.
I will put an end to all her mirth,
her festivals, her new moons,
her sabbaths,
and all her appointed festivals.
I 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."

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