¹ And the Lord said to me: Go yet again, and love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress : as the Lord loveth the children of Israel, and they look to strange gods, and love the husks of the grapes.

² And I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a core of barley, and for half a core of barley.

³ And I said to her: Thou shalt wait for me many days: thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt be no man's, and I also will wait for thee.

⁴ For the children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod, and without theraphim.

⁵ And after this the children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king: and they shall fear the Lord, and his goodness in the last days.

⁴ Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.

⁵ Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it: wounds, welts, and open sores. They haven't been closed, neither bandaged, neither soothed with oil.

⁷ Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

⁸ The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a besieged city.