¹ Say to your brothers, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

² Take up the cause against your mother, take it up, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; let her put away her loose ways from her face, and her false ways from between her breasts;

³ For fear that I may take away her robe from her, making her uncovered as in the day of her birth; making her like a waste place and a dry land, causing her death through need of water.

⁴ And I will have no mercy on her children, for they are the children of her loose ways.

⁵ For their mother has been untrue; she who gave them birth has done things of shame, 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 wine.

⁶ For this cause I will put thorns in her road, building up a wall round her so that she may not go on her way.

⁷ And if she goes after her lovers she will not overtake them; if she makes search for them she will not see them; then will she say, I will go back to my first husband, for then it was better for me than now.

⁸ For she had no knowledge that it was I who gave her the grain and the wine and the oil, increasing her silver and gold which they gave to the Baal.

⁹ So I will take away again my grain in its time and my wine, and I will take away my wool and my linen with which her body might have been covered.

¹⁰ And now I will make her shame clear before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will take her out of my hand.

¹¹ And I will put an end to all her joy, her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her regular meetings.

¹² And I will make waste her vines and her fig-trees, of which she has said, These are the payments which my lovers have made to me; and I will make them a waste of trees, and the beasts of the field will take them for food.

¹³ And I will give her punishment for the days of the Baals, to whom she has been burning perfumes, when she made herself fair with her nose-rings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, giving no thought to me, says the Lord.

¹⁴ For this cause I will make her come into the waste land and will say words of comfort to her.

¹⁵ And I will give her vine-gardens from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will give her answer there as in the days when she was young, and as in the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ And in that day, says the Lord, you will say to me, Ishi; and you will never again give me the name of Baali;

¹⁷ For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and never again will she say their names.

¹⁸ And in that day I will make an agreement for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven and the things which go low on the earth; I will put an end to the bow and the sword and war in all the land, and will make them take their rest in peace.

¹⁹ And I will take you as my bride for ever; truly, I will take you as my bride in righteousness and in right judging, in love and in mercies.

²⁰ I will take you as my bride in good faith, and you will have knowledge of the Lord.

²¹ And it will be, in that day, says the Lord, that I will give an answer to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth;

²² And the earth will give its answer to the grain and the wine and the oil, and they will give an answer to Jezreel;

²³ And I will put her as seed in the earth, and I will have mercy on her to whom no mercy was given; and I will say to those who were not my people, You are my people, and they will say, My God.

¹ A word of the Lord: the Lord has come to the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is his resting-place: for the towns of Aram are the Lord's,

² As well as Hamath, which is by its limit, and Tyre and Zidon, because they are very wise.

³ And Tyre made for herself a strong place, and got together silver like dust and the best gold like the earth of the streets.

⁴ See, the Lord will take away her heritage, overturning her power in the sea; and she will be burned up with fire.

⁵ Ashkelon will see it with fear, and Gaza, bent with pain; and Ekron, for her hope will be shamed: and the king will be cut off from Gaza, and Ashkelon will be unpeopled.

⁶ And a mixed people will be living in Ashdod, and I will have the pride of the Philistines cut off.

⁷ And I will take away his blood from his mouth, and his disgusting things from between his teeth; and some of his people will be kept for our God: and he will be as a family in Judah, and Ekron as one living in Jerusalem.

⁸ And I will put my forces in position round my house, so that there may be no coming and going: and no cruel master will again go through them: for now I have seen his trouble.

⁹ Be full of joy, O daughter of Zion; give a glad cry, O daughter of Jerusalem: see, your king comes to you: he is upright and has overcome; gentle and seated on an ass, on a young ass.

¹⁰ And he will have the war-carriage cut off from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of war will be cut off: and he will say words of peace to the nations: and his rule will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

¹¹ And as for you, because of the blood of your agreement, I have sent out your prisoners from the deep hole in which there is no water.

¹² And they will come back to you, O daughter of Zion, as prisoners of hope: today I say to you that I will give you back twice as much;

¹³ For I have made Judah a bow bent for my use, I have made Ephraim the arrows of the bow; I will make your sons, O Zion, take up arms against your sons, O Greece, and will make you like the sword of a man of war.

¹⁴ And the Lord will be seen over them, and his arrow will go out like the thunder-flame: and the Lord God, sounding the war-horn, will go in the storm-winds of the South.

¹⁵ The Lord of armies will be a cover for them; and they will overcome, crushing under foot the armed men; they will take their blood for drink like wine: they will be full like the sides of the altar.

¹⁶ And the Lord their God will be their saviour in that day, giving them food like the flock of his people: for they will be like the jewels of a crown shining over his land.

¹⁷ For how good it is and how beautiful! grain will make the young men strong and new wine the virgins.