Lexham English Bible

Hosea 2:3-16 Lexham English Bible (LEB)

3. Lest I strip her naked and expose her like the day when she was born; I will make her like the desert and turn her into parched land; I will kill her with thirst.

4. And I will not have pity on her children, because they are children of whoredom.

5. Because their mother was unfaithful; she who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said: “I will go after my lovers, the ones who give me my bread, my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.”

6. Therefore, Look! I am going to hedge her path with thorns, and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall against her, and she will not find her paths.

7. Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; she will seek them and not find them; and she will say, “I will go and return to my first husband because it was better for me then than now.”

8. But she did not know that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and who gave her silver in abundance, and gold which they made into a Baal.

9. Therefore I will take again 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.

10. And now I will uncover her nakedness before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand.

11. And I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals;

12. and I will lay waste to her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, “They are my payment for prostitution, which my lovers gave to me.” I will make them a forest, and the wild animals of the field will devour them.

13. I will punish her for the days of the Baals, to whom she burns incense, and she decked herself with her ornamental ring and jewelry, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me —a declaration of Yahweh.

14. Therefore, Look! I am going to allure her and bring her into the desert, and I will speak tenderly to her.

15. From there I will give her her vineyards, and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope. And there she will respond, as in the days of her youth, just as in the day of her coming out of the land of Egypt.

16. And on that day— a declaration of Yahweh— you will call me, “My husband;” you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”