Hosea 2  New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

² Plead with your mother, plead—
    for she is not my wife,
    and I am not her husband—
that she put away her prostitution from her face
    and her adultery from between her breasts,^(A)
3 or I will strip her naked
    and expose her as in the day she was born
and make her like a wilderness
    and turn her into a parched land
    and kill her with thirst.^(B)
4 Upon her children also I will have no pity,
    because they are children of prostitution.^(C)
5 For their mother has prostituted herself;
    she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
    they give me my bread and my water,
    my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”^(D)
6 Therefore I will hedge up her^[d] way with thorns,
    and I will build a wall against her
    so that she cannot find her paths.^(E)
7 She shall pursue her lovers
    but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
    but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, “I will go
    and return to my first husband,
    for it was better with me then than now.”^(F)
8 She did not know
    that it was I who gave her
    the grain, the wine, and the oil
and who lavished upon her silver
    and gold that they used for Baal.^(G)
9 Therefore I will take back
    my grain in its time
    and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
    which were to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰ Now I will uncover her shame
    in the sight of her lovers,
    and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.^(H)
11 I will put an end to all her mirth,
    her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
    and all her appointed festivals.^(I)
12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
    of which she said,
“These are my pay,
    which my lovers have given me.”
I will make them a forest,
    and the wild animals shall devour them.^(J)
13 I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
    to whom she offered incense
and decked herself with her rings and jewelry
    and went after her lovers
    and forgot me, says the Lord.^(K)