1 ¶ The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

² ¶ The beginning of the word of the LORD with Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land shall give itself over to whoredom by departing from the LORD.

³ So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, who conceived and bore him a son.

⁴ And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

⁵ And it shall come to pass in that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.

⁶ And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah: for I will never again have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly forget them.

⁷ But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah and will save them in the LORD their God and will not save them by bow, by sword, by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

⁸ ¶ And after she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived and bore a son.

⁹ Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.

¹⁰ With all this, the number of the sons of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

¹¹ And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be congregated together, and they shall raise up for themselves one head, and they shall rise up from the land: for the day of Jezreel is great.

2 ¶ Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

² Contend with your mother, contend: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore remove her whoredoms from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts;

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

⁴ Neither will I have mercy upon her sons, for they are the sons of whoredoms.

⁵ For their mother has played the harlot; she that conceived them has been shamed; 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.

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

⁷ And 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 it was better with me than now.

⁸ For she did not recognize that I gave her the wheat and the wine and the oil and multiplied unto them the silver and the gold, with which they made Baal.

⁹ Therefore I will return and take away my wheat in the time thereof and my wine in the season thereof and will recover my wool and my flax that I had given to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now I will uncover her folly in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹ I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast, her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her festivities.

¹² And I will cause her vine and her fig tree to be cut down, of which she has said, These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will reduce them to a thicket, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

¹³ And I will visit upon her the times of the Baals, unto whom she burned incense, and she adorned herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, oblivious of me, saith the LORD.

¹⁴ ¶ Therefore, behold, I will induce her and bring her into the wilderness and speak unto her heart.

¹⁵ And I will give 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.

¹⁶ And it shall be in that time, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me My Husband, and shalt no longer call me Baali.

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

¹⁸ And in that time I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of the heaven and with the serpents of the earth; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle of the earth and will cause them to sleep safely.

¹⁹ And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in mercy.

²⁰ I will even betroth thee unto me in faith: and thou shalt know the LORD.

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

²² and the earth shall respond to the wheat and the wine and the oil; and they shall respond to Jezreel.

²³ And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon Loruhamah, {her that had not obtained mercy} and I will say to Loammi, {those who were not my people} Thou art my people; and he shall say, Thou art my God.

3 ¶ Then the LORD said unto me again, Go, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the sons of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine.

² So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and an homer and a half of barley:

³ and I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.

⁴ For the sons of Israel shall abide many days without king and without Lord and without sacrifice and without image, and without ephod and without teraphim;

⁵ afterward the sons of Israel shall return, and they shall seek the LORD their God and David their king; and they shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the end of the days.

4 ¶ Hear the word of the LORD, ye sons of Israel; for the LORD contends with the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the earth.

² By swearing and lying and murdering and stealing and committing adultery, they prevailed, and blood touches blood.

³ Therefore the earth shall mourn, and every one that dwells therein shall be cut off, with the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven; and even the fishes of the sea shall be caught.

⁴ Certainly man does not contend with nor reprehend man; for thy people are as those that resist the priest.

⁵ Therefore thou shalt fall in the day, and the prophet shall also fall with thee by night, and I will cut off thy mother.

⁶ ¶ My people were cut off because they lacked wisdom; because thou hast rejected wisdom, I will cast thee out of the priesthood; seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy sons.

⁷ According to their greatness, so did they sin against me; therefore I will change their honour into shame.

⁸ They eat up the sin of my people, and in their iniquity they raise up their soul.

⁹ The people shall become like the priest; and I will visit his ways upon him, and they shall reward him according to his doings.

¹⁰ For they shall eat and not be satisfied; they shall commit whoredom and shall not increase because they have quit showing hospitality unto the LORD.

¹¹ Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

¹² ¶ My people ask counsel of their wooden idol, and their stick declares unto them; for the spirit of whoredoms has caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring under their gods.

¹³ They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, that had good shade; therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law shall commit adultery.

¹⁴ I will not visit upon your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor upon your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery: for they offer with whores, and they sacrifice with cult prostitutes; therefore the people without understanding shall fall.

¹⁵ Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah be guilty; and do not come unto Gilgal, neither go up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD lives,

¹⁶ for Israel has turned away as a wild heifer; shall the LORD now feed them as rams in a large place?

¹⁷ Ephraim is given over to idols; leave him.

¹⁸ Their drink has become corrupted; they have committed whoredom continually; her princes love gifts, shamefully.

¹⁹ The wind has bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

2 ¶ Blow the shofar in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble for the day of the LORD comes, for it is near at hand;

² a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of shadow that spreads itself upon the mountains as the dawn: a people great and strong; there has not ever been the like, neither shall there be any more after him, even to the years of many generations.

³ A fire devours before him and behind him a flame burns: the earth is as the garden of Eden before him, and behind him a desolate wilderness; neither shall anyone escape him.

⁴ His appearance is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.

⁵ Like the thunder of chariots they shall leap over the tops of mountains, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.

⁶ Before him the peoples shall fear: all faces shall go pale.

⁷ They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march each one in his ways, and they shall not break his ranks.

⁸ No one shall crowd his companion; they shall walk each one in his path: and even falling upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.

⁹ They shall go through the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

¹⁰ The earth shall quake before him; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall go dark; and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

¹¹ and the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for many are his camps and strong, that execute his word; for the day of the LORD is great, and very terrible; and who can abide it?

¹² ¶ Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn unto me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping, and with mourning:

¹³ and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in mercy, and he does repent of chastisement.

¹⁴ Who knows if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him even a present and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?

¹⁵ Blow the shofar in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:

¹⁶ gather the people, sanctify the meeting, assemble the elders, gather the children and those that suck the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber and the bride out of her closet.

¹⁷ Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Forgive thy people, O LORD, and do not give thine heritage to reproach that the Gentiles should rule over her: why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?

¹⁸ ¶ Then the LORD will be jealous for his earth and forgive his people.

¹⁹ Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you bread and new wine and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no longer make you a reproach among the Gentiles:

²⁰ But I will remove far off from you he of the north wind and will drive him into a land barren and desolate; his face shall be toward the east sea, and his end unto the western sea, and he shall exhale his foul odour, and he shall decompose, because he has lifted himself up.

²¹ Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD has done great things.

²² Be not afraid, ye animals of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness shall become green again, for the trees shall bear their fruit, the fig tree and the vine shall give their fruits.

²³ Ye also, sons of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God for he has given you the former rain according to righteousness, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain as in the beginning.

²⁴ And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

²⁵ And I will restore to you the years that the caterpillar has eaten, the locust, and the cankerworm, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

²⁶ And ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God that has dealt wondrously with you; and my people shall never again be ashamed.

²⁷ And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the LORD your God, and there is none other; and my people shall never be ashamed.

²⁸ ¶ And it shall come to pass after this that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

²⁹ and even upon the slaves and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

³⁰ And I will show wonders in the heaven and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

³¹ The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and the terrible day of the LORD comes.

³² And it shall come to pass that whoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall escape: for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be salvation, as the LORD has said, and in those who are left, to whom the LORD shall have called.