1Say you unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

Unfaithful Israel Punished

2Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her harlotry out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

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

4And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of harlotry.

5For their mother has played the harlot: she that conceived them has done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

6Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, so that she shall not find her paths.

7And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

8For she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

9Therefore will I return, and take away my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and will take back my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

Judah and Israel Restored

10And now will I uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand.

11I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

12And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13And I will punish her for the days of Baalim, when she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the LORD.

God's Mercy Will Come

14Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.

15And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16And it shall be at that day, says the LORD, that you shall call me Ishi; and shall call me no more Baali.

17For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

18And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will abolish the bow and the sword and the battle from the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

19And I will betroth you unto me forever; yea, I will betroth you unto me in righteousness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

20I will even betroth you unto me in faithfulness: and you shall know the LORD.

21And it shall come to pass in that day, I will answer, says the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;

22And the earth shall answer with grain, and wine, and oil; and they shall answer Jezreel.

23And I will sow her for myself in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them who were not my people, you are my people; and they shall say, you are my God.