Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

Hosea 1
⁸ After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again became pregnant and gave birth to a second son.
⁹ And the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi—‘Not my people’—for Israel is not my people, and I am not their God.
¹⁰ “Yet the time will come when Israel’s people will be like the sands of the seashore—too many to count! Then, at the place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said, ‘You are children of the living God.’
¹¹ Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite together. They will choose one leader for themselves, and they will return from exile together. What a day that will be—the day of Jezreel—when God will again plant his people in his land.
Hosea 2
¹ “In that day you will call your brothers Ammi—‘My people.’ And you will call your sisters Ruhamah—‘The ones I love.’ (In print editions of the NLT, 2:1 is set as its own paragraph at the end of chapter one.)
² “But now bring charges against Israel—your mother— for she is no longer my wife, and I am no longer her husband. Tell her to remove the prostitute’s makeup from her face and the clothing that exposes her breasts.
³ Otherwise, I will strip her as naked as she was on the day she was born. I will leave her to die of thirst, as in a dry and barren wilderness.
⁴ And I will not love her children, for they were conceived in prostitution.
⁵ Their mother is a shameless prostitute and became pregnant in a shameful way. She said, ‘I’ll run after other lovers and sell myself to them for food and water, for clothing of wool and linen, and for olive oil and drinks.’
⁶ “For this reason I will fence her in with thornbushes. I will block her path with a wall to make her lose her way.
⁷ When she runs after her lovers, she won’t be able to catch them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’