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.

¹³ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

¹⁴ "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men; for you don't enter in yourselves, neither do you allow those who are entering in to enter.

¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel around by sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much of a son of Gehenna as yourselves.

¹⁶ "Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.'

¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold?

¹⁸ 'Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obligated?'

¹⁹ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift?

²⁰ He therefore who swears by the altar, swears by it, and by everything on it.

²¹ He who swears by the temple, swears by it, and by him who was living in it.

²² He who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits on it.

²³ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

²⁴ You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!

²⁵ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.

²⁶ You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.

²⁷ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

²⁸ Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

²⁹ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous,

³⁰ and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn't have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.'

³¹ Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets.

³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.

³³ You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?