The Unfaithful Wife

¹ Say to your brother,¹ “Ammi,”² and to your sister,³ “Ruhamah.”⁴

1. Hebrew “brothers”
2. Ammi means “My people”
3. Hebrew “sisters”
4. Ruhamah means “Pitied”

² Plead with your mother, plead— because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her whoring ⌞from before her⌟,¹ and her adultery from between her breasts.

1. Literally “from her face”

³ Lest I strip her naked and expose her like the day when she was born; I will make her like the desert and turn her into parched land; I will kill her with thirst.

⁴ And I will not have pity on her children, because they are children of whoredom.

⁵ Because their mother was unfaithful;¹ she who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said: “I will go after my lovers, the ones who give me my bread, my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.”

1. Or “their mother played the whore”

⁶ Therefore, Look! I am going to hedge her path¹ ⌞with thorns⌟,² and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall against her, and she will not find her paths.

1. Hebrew “your path”
2. Literally “with the thorns”

⁷ Then she will pursue ⌞her lovers⌟,¹ but she will not overtake them; she will seek them and not find them; and she will say, “I will go and return to my first husband because it was better for me then than now.”

1. Literally “the ones who love her”

⁸ But she did not know that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and who gave her silver in abundance, and gold which they made into a Baal.

⁹ Therefore I will take again my grain in its time, and my wine in its season; and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now I will uncover her nakedness before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand.

¹¹ And I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals,¹ her new moons,² and her Sabbaths,³ and all her appointed festivals;⁴

1. Hebrew “festival”
2. Hebrew “new moon”
3. Hebrew “Sabbath”
4. Hebrew “festival”

¹² and I will lay waste to her vines¹ and her fig trees,² of which she said, “They are my payment for prostitution, which my lovers gave to me.” I will make them a forest, and the wild animals³ of the field will devour them.

1. Hebrew “vine”
2. Hebrew “fig tree”
3. Hebrew “animal”

¹³ ⌞I will punish her⌟¹ for the days of the Baals, to whom she burns incense, and she decked herself with her ornamental ring and jewelry, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me —a declaration of Yahweh.

1. Literally “To visit sins upon her;” see 1:4

¹⁴ Therefore, Look! I am going to allure her and bring her into the desert, and ⌞I will speak tenderly to her⌟.¹

1. Literally “I will speak to her heart”

¹⁵ From there I will give her her vineyards, and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope. And there she will respond, as in the days of her youth, just as in the day of her coming out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ ⌞And on that day⌟—¹ a declaration of Yahweh— you will call me, “My husband;”² you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”³

1. Literally, “And it will happen on that day”
2. Hebrew “Ishi”
3. Hebrew “Baali”

¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.

¹⁸ I will make a covenant for them on that day, with the animals¹ of the field, with the birds² of the heaven, and with the creeping things³ of the ground; the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.

1. Hebrew “animal”
2. Hebrew “bird”
3. Hebrew “creeping thing”

¹⁹ And I will take you as my wife forever; I will take you as a wife for myself in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.

²⁰ ⌞I will take you as my wife⌟¹ in faithfulness, and you will know Yahweh.

1. Literally “I will take you as a wife to me”

²¹ On that day I will answer, ⌞declares Yahweh⌟,¹ I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth.

1. Literally “a declaration of Yahweh

²² And the earth will answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they will answer Jezreel.¹

1. Jezreel means “God sows”

²³ I will sow her for myself in the land; I will have pity on Lo-ruhama;¹ I will say to Lo-ammi,² “You are my people,” and he himself will say, “you are my God.”

1. Lo-ruhama means “Not pitied”
2. Lo-ammi means “Not my people”