¹ "Say to your brothers, 'My people!' and to your sisters, 'My loved one!'

² Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

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

⁴ Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness;

⁵ For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; 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 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way.

⁷ She will follow after her lovers, but she won't overtake them; and she will seek them, but won't find them. Then she will 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 the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

⁹ Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

¹⁰ Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹ I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.

¹² I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,' and the animals of the field shall eat them.

¹³ I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me," says Yahweh.

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

¹⁵ I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ It will be in that day," says Yahweh, "that you will call me 'my husband,' and no longer call me 'my master.'

¹⁷ For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.

¹⁸ In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely.

¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion.

²⁰ I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh.

²¹ It will happen in that day, I will respond," says Yahweh, "I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth;

²² and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel.

²³ I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, 'You are my people;' and they will say, 'My God!'"

¹ "Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem; for evil looks forth from the north, and a great destruction.

² The comely and delicate one, the daughter of Zion, will I cut off.

³ Shepherds with their flocks shall come to her; they shall pitch their tents against her all around; they shall feed everyone in his place."

⁴ "Prepare war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

⁵ Arise, and let us go up by night, and let us destroy her palaces."

⁶ For Yahweh of Armies said, "Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her.

⁷ As a well casts forth its waters, so she casts forth her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds.

⁸ Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited."

⁹ Thus says Yahweh of Armies, "They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets."

¹⁰ To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can't listen. Behold, the word of Yahweh has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it.

¹¹ Therefore I am full of the wrath of Yahweh. I am weary with holding in. "Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.

¹² Their houses shall be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says Yahweh."

¹³ "For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

¹⁴ They have healed also the hurt of my people superficially, saying, 'Peace, Peace!' when there is no Peace.

¹⁵ Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down," says Yahweh.

¹⁶ Thus says Yahweh, "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, 'Where is the good way?' and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'

¹⁷ I set watchmen over you, saying, 'Listen to the sound of the trumpet!' But they said, 'We will not listen!'

¹⁸ Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them.

¹⁹ Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

²⁰ To what purpose comes there to me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me."

²¹ Therefore thus says Yahweh, "Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together shall stumble against them. The neighbor and his friend shall perish."

²² Thus says Yahweh, "Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

²³ They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion."

²⁴ We have heard its report; our hands wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, [and] pangs as of a woman in travail.

²⁵ Don't go forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy, [and] terror, are on every side.

²⁶ Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.

²⁷ "I have made you a tester of metals [and] a fortress among my people; that you may know and try their way.

²⁸ They are all grievous rebels, going about with slanders; they are brass and iron: they all of them deal corruptly.

²⁹ The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed of the fire: in vain do they go on refining; for the wicked are not plucked away.

³⁰ Men will call them rejected silver, because Yahweh has rejected them."