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 And the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying,

² These are the words of the Lord of armies: I am angry about the fate of Zion, I am angry about her with great wrath.

³ This is what the Lord has said: I have come back to Zion, and will make my living-place in Jerusalem: and Jerusalem will be named The town of good faith; and the mountain of the Lord of armies The holy mountain.

⁴ This is what the Lord of armies has said: There will again be old men and old women seated in the open spaces of Jerusalem, every man with his stick in his hand because he is so old.

⁵ And the open spaces of the town will be full of boys and girls playing in its open spaces.

⁶ This is what the Lord of armies has said: If this is a wonder to the rest of this people, is it a wonder to me? says the Lord of armies.

⁷ This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will be the saviour of my people from the east country, and from the west country;

⁸ And I will make them come and be living in Jerusalem and they will be to me a people and I will be to them a God, in good faith and in righteousness.

⁹ This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your hands be strong, you who are now hearing these words from the mouths of the prophets, that is to say, in the days when the base of the house of the Lord of armies has been put in place for the building of the house, that is the Temple.

¹⁰ For before those days there was no payment for a man's work, or for the use of a beast, and there was no peace for him who went out or him who came in, because of the attacker: for I had every man turned against his neighbour.

¹¹ But now I will not be to the rest of this people as I was in the past, says the Lord of armies.

¹² For I will let the seed of peace be planted; the vine will give her fruit and the land will give her increase and the heavens will give their dew; and I will give to the rest of this people all these things for their heritage.

¹³ And it will come about that, as you were a curse among the nations, O children of Judah and children of Israel, so I will give you salvation and you will be a blessing: have no fear and let your hands be strong.

¹⁴ For this is what the Lord of armies has said: As it was my purpose to do evil to you when your fathers made me angry, says the Lord of armies, and my purpose was not changed:

¹⁵ So in these days it is again my purpose to do good to Jerusalem and to the children of Judah: have no fear.

¹⁶ These are the things which you are to do: Let every man say what is true to his neighbour; and let your judging give peace in your towns.

¹⁷ Let no one have any evil thought in his heart against his neighbour; and have no love for false oaths: for all these things are hated by me, says the Lord.

¹⁸ And the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying,

¹⁹ This is what the Lord of armies has said: The times of going without food in the fourth month and in the fifth and the seventh and the tenth months, will be for the people of Judah times of joy and happy meetings; so be lovers of good faith and of peace.

²⁰ This is what the Lord of armies has said: It will again come about that when peoples and those living in great towns come,

²¹ And the people of one town go to another and say, Let us certainly go with a request for grace from the Lord, and to give worship to the Lord of armies, then I will go with you.

²² And great peoples and strong nations will come to give worship to the Lord of armies in Jerusalem and to make requests for grace from the Lord.

²³ This is what the Lord of armies has said: In those days, ten men from all the languages of the nations will put out their hands and take a grip of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for it has come to our ears that God is with you.