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Hosea 2

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1 3 Say ye to your brothers, Ammi*; and to your sisters, Ruchamah*.

2 4 Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband; and let her put·​·aside her harlotries from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts,

3 5 lest I strip her naked, and place her as in the day of her birth, and set her as a wilderness, and put her as an arid land, and cause her to die with thirst.

4 6 And I will not have·​·compassion·​·on her sons, for they are the sons of harlotries.

5 7 For their mother has committed·​·harlotry; she who conceived them has been shamed, for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

6 8 Therefore, behold, I will hedge·​·up thy way with sirim*, and fence· her ·in with a fence, that she shall not find her trails.

7 9 And she shall pursue her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find; and she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.

8 10 And she did not know that I gave grain to her, and must*, and olive·​·oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which* they made for Baal.

9 11 Therefore will I return, and take My grain in its time, and My must in its season, and will rescue My wool and My flax to cover her nakedness.

10 12 And now I will reveal her foolishness* to the eyes of her lovers, and a man shall not rescue her from My hand.

11 13 And I will cause all her joy to cease, her festival, her new·​·moon, and her Sabbath, and all her solemn·​·occasions.

12 14 And I will desolate her vine and her fig·​·tree, of which she has said, These are my hire* that my lovers have given me; and I will set them for a forest, and the animal of the field shall eat them.

13 15 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, in which she burned·​·incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewelry, and she went after her lovers, and Me she forgot, says Jehovah.

14 16 Therefore, behold, I will entice her, and cause her to go into the wilderness, and speak on her heart.

15 17 And I will give to her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for an entrance of hope; and she shall answer there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she went·​·up from the land of Egypt.

16 18 And it shall be in that day, says Jehovah, that thou shalt call Me Ishi*; and shalt not call Me Baali* any·​·more.

17 19 And I will remove the names of Baalim from her mouth, and they shall not be remembered any·​·more by their name.

18 20 And in that day will I cut a covenant for them with the animal of the field, and with the fowl of the heavens, and with the creeping thing of the ground; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle from the earth, and will cause them to lie·​·down securely.

19 21 And I will betroth thee to Me for eternity; and I will betroth thee to Me in justice and in judgment, and in mercy and in compassions.

20 22 And I will betroth thee to Me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know Jehovah.

21 23 And it shall be in that day, I will answer, says Jehovah; I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;

22 24 and the earth shall answer the grain, and the must, and the olive·​·oil; and they shall answer Jezreel.

23 25 And I will sow her to Me in the earth; and I will have·​·compassion·​·on her who had· not ·compassion; and I will say to him who was not My people, Thou art My people; and he shall say, Thou art my God.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Husband

  
Älteres Paar im Kücheninterieur, by Friedrich Friedländer (1825–1901)

In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.