Hosea 2:6-8
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
6 I will have no pity on her children,
for they are children of prostitution.
7 Yes, their mother has prostituted herself;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers,[a]
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”(A)
8 [b]Therefore, I will hedge in her way with thorns
and erect a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
Footnotes
- 2:7 My lovers: even though Israel had experienced the Lord as the God of the desert, covenant and conquest, the people were inclined to turn to the local fertility deities, the Baals, who were believed to be responsible for agricultural success. They easily forgot that the Lord provides them with everything (v. 10; cf. Dt 7:13), and thus prostituted themselves by worshiping other gods.
- 2:8 The crop failures sent by the Lord are meant to make Israel see the folly of its ways.
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