Hosea:2

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* Say to your brethren , "My people ,' And to your sisters , "Mercy is shown .' * "Bring charges against your mother , bring charges ; For she is not My wife , nor am I her Husband ! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight , And her adulteries from between her breasts ; * Lest I strip her naked And expose her , as in the day she was born , And make her like a wilderness , And set her like a dry land , And slay her with thirst . * "I will not have mercy on her children , For they are the children of harlotry . * For their mother has played the harlot ; She who conceived them has behaved shamefully . For she said , "I will go after my lovers , Who give me my bread and my water , My wool and my linen , My oil and my drink .' * "Therefore , behold , I will hedge up your way with thorns , And wall her in , So that she cannot find her paths . * She will chase her lovers , But not overtake them ; Yes , she will seek them , but not find them . Then she will say , "I will go and return to my first husband , For then it was better for me than now .' * For she did not know That I gave her grain , new wine , and oil , And multiplied her silver and gold -- Which they prepared for Baal . * "Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time And My new wine in its season , And will take back My wool and My linen , Given to cover her nakedness . * Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers , And no one shall deliver her from My hand . * I will also cause all her mirth to cease , Her feast days , Her New Moons , Her Sabbaths -- All her appointed feasts . * "And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees , Of which she has said , "These are my wages that my lovers have given me .' So I will make them a forest , And the beasts of the field shall eat them . * I will punish her For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense . She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry , And went after her lovers ; But Me she forgot ," says the LORD . * "Therefore , behold , I will allure her , Will bring her into the wilderness , And speak comfort to her . * I will give her her vineyards from there , And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope ; She shall sing there , As in the days of her youth , As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt . * "And it shall be , in that day ," Says the LORD , "That you will call Me "My Husband ,' And no longer call Me "My Master ,' * For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals , And they shall be remembered by their name no more . * In that day I will make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field , With the birds of the air , And with the creeping things of the ground . Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth , To make them lie down safely . * "I will betroth you to Me forever ; Yes , I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice , In lovingkindness and mercy ; * I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness , And you shall know the LORD . * "It shall come to pass in that day That I will answer ," says the LORD ; "I will answer the heavens , And they shall answer the earth . * The earth shall answer With grain , With new wine , And with oil ; They shall answer Jezreel . * Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth , And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy ; Then I will say to those who were not My people , "You are My people !' And they shall say , "You are my God !"'

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