¹ Say ye to your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

² Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her prostitutions out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

³ Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

⁴ And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of lewdness.

⁵ For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

⁶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

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

⁸ For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

⁹ Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now will I disclose her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹ I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

¹² And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, of which she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

¹³ And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, in which she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the LORD.

¹⁴ Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.

¹⁵ And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came from the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.

¹⁷ For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

¹⁸ And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping animals of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down in safety.

¹⁹ And I will betroth thee to me for ever; yes, I will betroth thee to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies.

²⁰ I will even betroth thee to me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

²¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

²² And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

²³ And I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them who were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

⁵ For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah by his God, by the LORD of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.

¹ I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me testimony in the Holy Spirit,

² That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

³ For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

⁴ Who are Israelites; to whom pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

⁵ Whose are the fathers, and from whom according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

⁶ Not as though the word of God hath taken no effect. For they are not all Israel, who are descendants from Israel?

⁷ Neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

⁸ That is, They who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

⁹ For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.

¹⁰ And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac,

¹¹ (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth)

¹² It was said to her, The elder shall serve the younger.

¹³ As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? By no means.

¹⁵ For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

¹⁶ So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

¹⁷ For the scripture saith to Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

¹⁸ Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

¹⁹ Thou wilt say then to me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will?

²⁰ No, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

²¹ Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor?

²² What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

²³ And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory,

²⁴ Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.

²⁵ As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them My people, who were not my people; and her Beloved, who was not beloved.

²⁶ And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said to them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called, The children of the living God.

²⁷ Isaiah also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

²⁸ For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

²⁹ And as Isaiah said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like Gomorrah.

³⁰ What shall we say then? That the Gentiles who followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith:

³¹ But Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.

³² Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone;

³³ As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone, and rock of offense: and whoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.