book of the Hebrew Bible From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
The Book of Hosea (Hebrew:סֵפֶר הוֹשֵׁעַ, romanized: Sēfer Hōšēaʿ) is collected as one of the Twelve Minor Prophets of the Nevi'im in the Hebrew Bible, and as a book in its own right in the Christian Old Testament. According to the traditional order of most Hebrew Bibles, it is the first of the Twelve. It is attributed to Prophet Hosea.
The Judaeans and Israelites will be reunited and will choose themselves a single head, and will spread far beyond their country, for great will be the Day of Jezreel! Then call your brothers, 'My people', and your sisters, 'You have been pitied'. To court, take your mother to court! For she is no longer my wife nor am I her husband. She must either remove her whoring ways from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts.
And I shall feel no pity for her children since they are the children of her who rings. Yes, their mother has played the whore, she who conceived them has disgraced herself by saying, 'I shall chase after my lovers; they will assure me my keep, my wool, my flax, my oil and my drinks.'
This is why I shall block her way with thorns, and wall her in to stop her in her tracks; then if she chases her lovers she will not catch them, if she looks for them she will not find them, and then she will say, 'I shall go back to my first husband, I was better off then than I am now;' she had never realised before that I was the one who was giving her the grain, new wine and oil, giving her more and more silver and gold which they have spent on Baal! This is why I shall take back my grain when it is due and my new wine, when the season for it comes. I shall withdraw my wool and my flax which were to cover her naked body, and then display her infamy before her lovers' eyes- no one will take her from me then! I shall put an end to all her merrymaking, her festivals, her New Moons and her Sabbaths and all her solemn feasts.
Sow saving justice for yourselves, reap a harvest of faithful love; break up your fallow ground: it is time to seek out Yahweh until he comes to rain saving justice down on you.