1(2-3) Say ye unto your brethren: 'Ammi'; and to your sisters, 'Ruhamah.'

2(2-4) Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not My wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her harlotries from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

3(2-5) 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(2-6) And I will not have compassion upon her children; for they are children of harlotry.

5(2-7) For their mother hath played the harlot, she that conceived them hath done shamefully; for she said: 'I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.'

6(2-8) Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will make a wall against her, that she shall not find her paths.

7(2-9) And she shall run 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.'

8(2-10) For she did not know that it was I that gave her the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and multiplied unto her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

9(2-11) Therefore will I take back My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and will snatch away My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness.

10(2-12) And now will I uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of My hand.

11(2-13) I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her appointed seasons.

12(2-14) And I will lay waste her vines and her fig-trees, whereof she hath said: 'These are my hire that my lovers have given me'; and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13(2-15) And I will visit upon her the days of the Baalim, wherein she offered unto them, and decked herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot Me, saith the LORD.

14(2-16) Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly unto her.

15(2-17) And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

16(2-18) And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call Me Ishi, and shalt call Me no more Baali.

17(2-19) For I will take away the names of the Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be mentioned by their name.

18(2-20) And 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 break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the land, and will make them to lie down safely.

19(2-21) And I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and in compassion.

20(2-22) And I will betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the LORD.

21(2-23) 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(2-24) And the earth shall respond to the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall respond to Jezreel.

23(2-25) And I will sow her unto Me in the land; and I will have compassion upon her that had not obtained compassion; and I will say to them that were not My people: 'Thou art My people'; and they shall say: 'Thou art my God.'