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          DASV: Hosea 2    

1 Say to your brothers, 'Ammi,' [my people] and to your sisters,
     'Ruhamah' [pity].
2 Plead with your mother, plead,
      for she is not my wife,
           and I am not her husband.
      She must put away her prostitutions from her face,
           and her adulteries from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked,
           as the day that she was born.
      I will turn her into a wilderness,
          and turn her into a desert land,
                and slay her with thirst.
4 I will have no pity on her children,
     for they are children of adultery.
5 Their mother has played the prostitute;
     she who conceived them has acted shamefully;
      for she said, 'I will pursue my lovers,
     who give me my bread and my water,
     my wool and my flax, my olive oil and my drink.'
6 Therefore, I will fence her in with thorns,
     and I will build a wall to fence her in
     so that she cannot find her paths.
7 Then she will pursue her lovers,
     but she will not catch them.
      She will seek them,
     but will not be able to find them.
     Then she will say, 'I will go back to my first husband,
          for I was better back then than now.'
8 For she had no clue that I was the one
     who gave her the grain, new wine and olive oil,
     and multiplied her silver and gold,
           which they used for Baal.
9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time,
           and my new wine in its season.
      I will take away my wool and my flax
           which were given to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,
      and no one will rescue her out of my hand.
11 I will also put an end to all her partying,
     her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths,
           all her appointed festivals.
12 I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she claimed,
     'These are my wages that my lovers have given me.'
     But I will turn them into a forest,
           and the beasts of the field will devour them.
13 I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
     when she burned incense,
           when she decked herself with her earrings and jewels,
     and went after her lovers,
     and forgot me," declares the LORD.

14 "Therefore, I will allure her,
     and bring her into the wilderness,
          and speak kindly to her.
15 From there I will give her back her vineyards,
     and turn the Valley of Achor [trouble] into a door of hope.
      There she will respond, as in the days of her youth,
          and as on the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16 It will be in that day," says the LORD,
     "that you will call me 'My husband,'
     and will no longer call me 'My master.'
17 For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth,
     and they will no longer be mentioned by name.
18 In that day I will make a covenant
     with the beasts of the field,
      and with the birds of the air,
     and with the creatures that creep on the ground.
      I will abolish the bow, the sword and battle out of the land,
          and will let them lie down in security.
19 I will betroth you to me forever.
     I will take you as my wife in righteousness,
           justice, loyal love, and compassion.
20 I will take you as my wife in faithfulness,
     and you will know the LORD.

21 In that day, I will respond," says the LORD,
      "I will respond to the heavens,
           and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond with grain, new wine, and olive oil,
     and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 Then I will plant her for myself in the land;
     I will have pity on Lo-Ruhamah [no-pity];
      I will say to Lo-Ammi [not my people],
           'you are my people;'
            and they will reply, 'You are my God.'"

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