Hosea

1

¹ The word of Jehovah which came to Hosea the son of Beeri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash the king of Israel.
² At the beginning of Jehovah’s speaking to Hosea, Jehovah said to Hosea, / Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotries / And children of harlotries, / For the land is entirely given over to harlotry, / And thus departs from Jehovah.
³ So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim. And she conceived and bore him a son.
⁴ And Jehovah said to him,Call his name Jezreel, / For yet a little while / And I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel / Upon the house of Jehu / And will bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
⁵ And in that day / I will break the bow of Israel / In the valley of Jezreel.
⁶ And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And He said to him,Call her name Lo-ruhamah, / For I will no longer have compassion / On the house of Israel, / That I should forgive them at all.
⁷ But on the house of Judah I will have compassion and will save them by Jehovah their God, and I will not save them by bow or by sword or by battle, by horses or by horsemen.
⁸ When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son.
⁹ And He said,Call his name Lo-ammi, / For you are not My people, / And I will not belong to you.
¹⁰ But the number of the children of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, / Which cannot be measured or numbered; / And in the place where it will be said to them, You are not My people, / It will be said to them, You are the sons of the living God.
¹¹ And the children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, / And they will appoint for themselves one head, and they will go up from the land, / For great will be the day of Jezreel.

2

¹ Say to your brothers, Ammi, / And to your sisters, Ruhamah.
² Contend with your mother; contend. / For she is not My wife, / And I am not her Husband. / And let her turn away her harlotries from her face, / And her adulteries from between her breasts,
³ Lest I strip her naked / And set her out as in the day she was born / And make her a wilderness / And make her a dry land / And slay her with thirst.
⁴ And on her children I will not have compassion, / For they are the children of harlotries.
⁵ For their mother has gone about as a harlot; / She who conceived them has acted shamefully; / For she has 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 I will now hedge up / Her way with thorns; / And I will build up a wall against her, / So that she will not find her paths.
⁷ And she will pursue her lovers / But will not overtake them; / And she will seek them but not find them; / And she will say, I will go / And return to my first Husband, / For it was better for me then than now.
⁸ For she did not know / That it was I who gave her / The grain and the new wine and the fresh oil, / And who 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 appointed season, / And I will snatch away My wool and My flax, / Which were to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰ And now I will uncover her lewdness / In the sight of her lovers, / And no one will deliver her from My hand.
¹¹ And I will bring all her mirth to an end, / Her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, / And all her appointed assemblies.
¹² And I will desolate her vine and her fig tree, / Of which she said, / These are my payments / That my lovers have given me; / And I will make them a forest, / And the beasts of the field will devour them.
¹³ And I will visit the days of the Baals upon her, / In which she burned incense to them / And adorned herself with her nose rings and her jewels / And went after her lovers / And forgot Me, / Declares Jehovah.
¹⁴ Therefore I am now luring her, / And I will bring her into the wilderness / And will speak to her heart.
¹⁵ And I will give her her vineyards from there / And the valley of Achor as 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 And in that day, declares Jehovah, / You will call Me My Husband / And will no longer call Me Baali.
¹⁷ For I will take away the names of the Baals from her mouth, / And they will no longer be remembered by their name.
¹⁸ And I will make a covenant for them / In that day / With the beasts of the field / And with the birds of heaven / And the creeping things of the earth; / And bow and sword and battle / I will break from the land, / And I will cause them to lie down in safety.
¹⁹ And I will betroth you to Myself forever; / Indeed I will betroth you to Myself / In righteousness and justice / And in lovingkindness and compassions;
²⁰ Indeed I will betroth you to Myself in faithfulness, / And you will know Jehovah.
²¹ And in that day / I will answer, declares Jehovah; / I will answer the heavens, / And they will answer the earth,
²² And the earth will answer the grain / And the new wine and the fresh oil, / And they will answer Jezreel.
²³ And I will sow her for Myself in the land; / And I will have compassion on Lo-ruhamah, / And I will say to Lo-ammi, You are My people; / And they will say, My God.

3

¹ Then Jehovah said to me, Go again, love a woman who is loved by her companion yet who is an adulteress, even as Jehovah has loved the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.
² So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley and a half-homer of barley.
³ And I said to her, You will abide for me for many days; you shall not go about as a harlot nor be another man’s; and I will be the same toward you.
⁴ For the children of Israel will abide for many days without king and without prince and without sacrifice and without pillar and without ephod and teraphim.
⁵ Afterward the children of Israel will return and seek Jehovah their God and David their King, and they will come with fear to Jehovah and to His goodness in the last days.

4

¹ Hear the word of Jehovah, / O children of Israel; / For Jehovah has a controversy / With the inhabitants of the land. / For there is no faithfulness or kindness / And no knowledge of God in the land.
² Rather there are swearing and deceiving and murder / And stealing and adultery; / They are violent, / And bloodshed follows bloodshed.
³ Because of this the land mourns, / And all the inhabitants languish within it, / With the beasts of the field / And with the birds of heaven; / Indeed, even the fish of the sea will be taken away.
⁴ Yet let no man contend, / And let no man reprove; / For your people are like those who contend with the priest.
⁵ And you will stumble in the day, / And the prophet also will stumble / With you in the night; / And I will destroy your mother.
⁶ My people are destroyed / Because of a lack of that knowledge. / For you have rejected that knowledge, / And I will reject you, so that you will not be a priest to Me; / Since you have forgotten the law of your God, / I also will forget your children.
⁷ The more they were multiplied, the more they sinned against Me; / I will change their glory into shame.
⁸ They feed on the sin of My people, / And their soul desires their iniquity.
⁹ And it will be that as it is with the people, so it will be with the priest; / Thus I will visit their ways upon them, / And I will recompense their doings to them.
¹⁰ And they will eat but will not be filled; / And they will commit fornication but will not increase; / For they have ceased giving heed to Jehovah.
¹¹ Fornication and wine / And new wine take away their heart.
¹² My people inquire at their wooden post, / And their rod informs them of things; / For a spirit of harlotries makes them err, / And they have gone about as harlots away from their God.
¹³ Upon the tops of the mountains they offer sacrifices, / And upon the hills they burn incense, / Under oak, poplar, and terebinth, / Because its shade is good. / Therefore your daughters go about as harlots, / And your brides commit adultery.
¹⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they go about as harlots / Nor your brides when they commit adultery; / For the men themselves go off with harlots, / And they offer sacrifices with the prostitutes; / And the people who have no understanding will be cast down.
¹⁵ Though you, Israel, go about as a harlot, / Let not Judah trespass; / And do not come to Gilgal, / Nor go up to Beth-aven, / Nor swear, As Jehovah lives.
¹⁶ For Israel is stubborn, / Like a stubborn heifer; / Will Jehovah now pasture them / Like a lamb in a spacious place?
¹⁷ Ephraim is joined to idols; / Leave him alone.
¹⁸ Their liquor has ended; / They have given themselves up to harlotry; / Her rulers dearly love shame.
¹⁹ The wind has wrapped her up in its wings, / And they will be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

5

¹ Hear this, O priests; / And listen, O house of Israel; / And, O house of the king, give ear. / For to you belongs the judgment, / For you have been a snare at Mizpah / And a net spread over Tabor.
² And the revolters have gone deep into slaughtering, / Though I am a chastisement to them all.
³ I know Ephraim, / And Israel is not hidden from Me; / For now, Ephraim, you have gone about as a harlot; / Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their doings do not permit them / To turn to their God; / For a spirit of harlotries is within them, / And they do not know Jehovah.
⁵ And the pride of Israel testifies to his face, / And Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity; / Judah also will stumble with them.
⁶ With their flocks and with their herds they will go / To seek Jehovah, / But they will not find Him; / He has withdrawn Himself from them.
⁷ They have acted treacherously against Jehovah, / For they have begotten strange children. / Now the new moon will devour them / With their apportionments.
⁸ Blow the horn in Gibeah, / The trumpet in Ramah; / Sound an alarm at Beth-aven: / Behind you, O Benjamin!
⁹ Ephraim will be a desolation / In the day of correction; / Among the tribes of Israel / I have made known what is sure.
¹⁰ The princes of Judah have become / Like those who move a boundary mark. / I will pour out upon them / My overflowing wrath like water.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed, / Crushed by judgment, / For he was determined to walk / After man’s command.
¹² Therefore I am like a moth to Ephraim / And like rottenness to the house of Judah.
¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness, / And Judah his wound, / Ephraim went to Assyria / And sent word to the warrior king; / But he cannot heal you, / And the wound will not depart from you.
¹⁴ For I will be like a lion to Ephraim / And like a young lion to the house of Judah. / I, I will tear them and go away; / I will carry them off, and there will be no one to deliver them.
¹⁵ I will go away, I will return to My place, / Until they acknowledge their offense / And seek My face; / In their affliction they will seek Me earnestly.

6

¹ Come and let us return to Jehovah; / For He has torn us, but He will heal us, / And He has stricken us, but He will bind us up.
² He will enliven us after two days; / On the third day He will raise us up, / And we will live in His presence.
³ Therefore let us know, let us pursue knowing Jehovah: / His going forth is as sure as the dawn, / And He will come to us as the rain, / As the late rain which waters the earth.
⁴ What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? / What shall I do with you, O Judah? / For your lovingkindness is like a morning cloud / And like dew that departs early.
⁵ Therefore I hewed them to pieces by the prophets; / I slew them by the words of My mouth, / And My judgments went forth as light.
⁶ For I delight in lovingkindness and not sacrifice, / And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
⁷ But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant; / There they have acted treacherously against Me.
⁸ Gilead is a city of those who commit iniquity; / It is tracked with blood.
⁹ And like bands of robbers lying in wait for a man, / The company of priests murder on the way to Shechem; / Indeed they commit wickedness.
¹⁰ In the house of Israel I have seen a horrid thing: / The harlotry of Ephraim is there; / Israel has defiled itself.
¹¹ Also, O Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, / When I will turn the captivity of My people.

7

¹ When I would heal Israel, / Then the iniquity of Ephraim is discovered / As well as the evil deeds of Samaria; / For they practice falsehood. / And the thief comes inside; / The band of robbers makes raids outside.
² And they do not say in their hearts / That I remember all their evil. / Now their doings are all around them; / They are before My face.
³ They make the king glad with their evil, / And the princes, with their lies.
⁴ All of them practice adultery; / They are like an oven heated by the baker: / He ceases from stirring the fire, / After kneading the dough, until it is leavened.
⁵ On the feast day of our king / The princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine; / He stretched out his hand with scorners.
⁶ For they have made their heart ready / Like an oven while they lie in wait: / All night long / Their baker sleeps, / But in the morning the oven burns / Like a flaming fire.
⁷ All of them are hot like an oven, / And they devour their judges; / All their kings fall; / There is no one among them who calls on Me.
⁸ Ephraim — among the peoples / He mixes himself; / Ephraim is a cake / Not turned.
⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength, / And he himself does not know it; / Indeed gray hairs are all over him, / And he himself does not know it.
¹⁰ And the pride of Israel testifies to his face; / Yet they have not returned to Jehovah their God, / And they have not sought Him, because of all this.
¹¹ And Ephraim has become like a silly dove / Without understanding: / They call to Egypt; / They go to Assyria.
¹² When they go, / I will spread My net over them; / I will bring them down like the birds of heaven; / I will chasten them according to the report given to their assembly.
¹³ Woe to them! For they have wandered from Me. / Devastation to them! For they have transgressed against Me. / And I would have redeemed them, / But they have spoken lies against Me.
¹⁴ And they did not cry unto Me in their heart / When they howled in their beds. / For grain and new wine they assemble themselves; / They rebel against Me.
¹⁵ Though I trained them and strengthened their arms, / They devise evil against Me.
¹⁶ They return, but not to Him who is on high; / They are like a deceitful bow. / Their princes will fall by the sword / Because of the rage of their tongue. / This will be their derision / In the land of Egypt.

8

¹ A trumpet to your lips! / Like an eagle he comes against the house of Jehovah, / Because they have trespassed My covenant / And have transgressed against My law.
² They will cry unto Me, / My God, we — Israel — know You.
³ Israel has cast off what is good; / The enemy will pursue him.
⁴ They have set up kings, but not by Me; / They have set up princes, but I did not acknowledge it. / With their silver and their gold they made / Idols for themselves, / That they might be cut off.
⁵ Your calf has cast you off, O Samaria; / My anger burns against them. / How long will they be incapable of innocence?
⁶ For from Israel is this! / A workman made it; / Thus it is no God. / The calf of Samaria / Will be shattered to pieces.
⁷ For they have sown wind, / And they will reap a whirlwind. / It has no stalk; should there be a sprout, / It will not produce flour; / If it should produce, / Strangers will swallow it up.
⁸ Israel has been swallowed up; / Now they have become among the nations / Like a vessel in which no one takes pleasure.
⁹ For they have gone up to Assyria / Like a wild ass gone alone by itself; / Ephraim has hired lovers.
¹⁰ Indeed though they have hired such among the nations, / I will now gather them; / And they will begin to be diminished because of the burden / Of the king of the princes.
¹¹ Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sin, / Altars will be to him for sin.
¹² I wrote for him the ten thousand things of My law, / But they are considered as a strange thing.
¹³ As for the sacrifices of My offerings, / They sacrifice flesh and eat it, / But Jehovah has no delight in them. / Now He will remember their iniquity, / And He will punish their sins; / They will return to Egypt.
¹⁴ For Israel has forgotten his Maker / And has built palaces, / And Judah has multiplied fortified cities; / But I will send fire into his cities, / And it will devour its citadels.

9

¹ Do not rejoice, O Israel, / To exult like the nations. / For you have gone as a harlot away from your God; / You have loved payment / Upon every grain floor.
² The threshing floor and the winepress will not feed them, / And the new wine will fail her.
³ They will not dwell in the land of Jehovah; / But Ephraim will return to Egypt, / And in Assyria they will eat what is unclean.
⁴ They will not pour out offerings of wine to Jehovah, / Neither will their sacrifices be pleasing to Him; / They will be to them as the bread of mourning; / All who eat them will be unclean, / For their bread will be for themselves; / It will not come into the house of Jehovah.
⁵ What will you do / In the day of assembly / And in the day of the feast of Jehovah?
⁶ For they will go because of destruction; / Egypt will gather them; / Moph will bury them. / As for their desirable things of silver, nettles will dispossess them; / Thistles will be in their tents.
⁷ The days of the visitation have come; / The days of the recompense have come; / Israel will know it. / The prophet is a fool, / The inspired man is mad, / Because of the greatness of your iniquity / And because of the greatness of the enmity.
⁸ Ephraim was a watchman / With my God. / As for the prophet, a fowler’s trap / Is in all his ways; / Enmity is in the house of his God.
⁹ They have deeply corrupted themselves / As in the days of Gibeah; / He will remember their iniquity; / He will punish their sins.
¹⁰ I found Israel / Like grapes in the wilderness; / I saw your fathers / As the first ripe fruit on the fig tree at its beginning. / They went to Baal-peor / And sanctified themselves unto the shameful thing, / And they became detestable, like the thing that they loved.
¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory / Will fly away like a bird — / No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!
¹² For even if they bring up their children, / I will bereave them, so that not a man is left. / Indeed woe also to them / When I turn away from them.
¹³ Ephraim, as I have seen him, / Is planted like Tyre in a meadow; / But Ephraim will bring forth / His children to the slayer.
¹⁴ Give them, O Jehovah — / What will You give them? / Give them a miscarrying womb / And dry breasts.
¹⁵ All their evil is in Gilgal, / For there I hated them. / Because of the evil of their doings / I will drive them from My house, / I will love them no more; / All their princes are rebels.
¹⁶ Ephraim is stricken; / Their root is dried up; / They will not bear fruit. / Indeed though they bring forth, / I will kill the beloved fruit of their womb.
¹⁷ My God has rejected them, / For they did not listen to Him. / And they will be wanderers among the nations.

10

¹ Israel is a luxuriant vine; / He brings forth fruit for himself. / According to the abundance of his fruit / He has multiplied altars; / According to the goodness of their land / They have made pillars well.
² Their heart is divided; / Now they will be found guilty. / He Himself will break down their altars; / He will destroy their pillars.
³ For now they will say, / We have no king, / For we did not fear Jehovah; / And the king, what can he do for us?
⁴ They speak mere words, / Swearing falsely / While making a covenant; / And judgment sprouts forth like poisonous weeds / In the furrows of the field.
⁵ The inhabitants of Samaria will fear / For the calves of Beth-aven; / For its people will mourn over it, / And its idol priests will tremble for it, / For its glory, / Because it has departed from it.
⁶ Indeed it will be carried to Assyria: / A present to the warrior king. / Ephraim will be taken in shame, / And Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.
⁷ Samaria will be cut off with her king / And will be like twigs on the surface of the water.
⁸ And the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, / Will be destroyed. / The thorn and the thistle will come up / Upon their altars; / And they will say to the mountains, Cover us! / And to the hills, Fall on us!
⁹ Since the days of Gibeah / You have sinned, O Israel; / There they have stood. / Did not the battle / Overtake them in Gibeah / Because of the children of iniquity?
¹⁰ When I so desire, I will chastise them; / And the peoples will be gathered against them, / When they are bound for their double iniquity.
¹¹ And Ephraim is a trained heifer / That loves to tread the grain; / But I have passed the yoke / Over her fair neck: / I will make Ephraim draw the plow; / Judah will plow; / Jacob will break his clods.
¹² Sow unto righteousness for yourselves; / Reap according to lovingkindness; / Break up your fallow ground; / For it is time to seek Jehovah / Until He comes and rains / Righteousness on you.
¹³ You have plowed wickedness; / You have reaped injustice; / You have eaten the fruit of lying. / For you have trusted in your way, / In the multitude of your mighty men.
¹⁴ And a tumult will arise among your peoples; / And all your fortresses will be devastated, / As Shalman devastated Beth-arbel / In the day of battle: / The mother was dashed in pieces with the children.
¹⁵ Thus Bethel will cause this to happen to you / Because of your great evil: / At dawn the king of Israel / Will be utterly cut off.

11

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him, / And out of Egypt I called My son.
² As they called them, / So they went from them; / To the Baals they sacrificed, / And to the idols they burned incense.
³ And it was I who taught Ephraim to walk / (He took them in His arms), / But they did not know that I healed them.
⁴ I drew them with cords of a man, / With bands of love;And I was to them like those / Who lift off the yoke on their jaws; / And I gently caused them to eat.
⁵ They will not return to the land of Egypt, / But the Assyrian will be their king, / For they refused to return to Me.
⁶ And the sword will whirl about in their cities / And will consume their bars, / And it will devour them because of their own counsels.
⁷ Indeed My people are bent upon turning away from Me; / Though they call them to Him who is on high, / None at all exalts Him.
⁸ How shall I give you up, O Ephraim? / How shall I deliver you up, O Israel? / How can I make you like Admah? / How can I treat you like Zeboim? / My heart is turned within Me; / All My compassions have warmed.
⁹ I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; / I will not return to destroy Ephraim; / For I am God and not man, / The Holy One in the midst of you, / And I will not come in wrath.
¹⁰ They will walk after Jehovah; / He will roar like a lion. / For He will roar, / And the children will come trembling from the west.
¹¹ They will come trembling like a bird from Egypt / And like a dove from the land of Assyria. / And I will cause them to dwell in their houses, / Declares Jehovah.
¹² Ephraim encompasses Me with lies, / And the house of Israel, with deceit; / And Judah is yet unsteadfast with God / And with the Holy One, the Faithful One.

12

¹ Ephraim feeds on wind / And follows the east wind continually; / He multiplies lies and violence. / They make a covenant with Assyria, / And oil is carried into Egypt.
² Jehovah has also a controversy with Judah / And will punish Jacob according to his ways; / According to his doings He will recompense him.
³ In the womb he grasped his brother by the heel, / And in his full strength he contended with God.
⁴ Indeed he contended with the Angel and prevailed; / He wept and made supplication to Him. / At Bethel he found Him; / And there He spoke with us,
⁵ Even Jehovah the God of hosts; / Jehovah is His memorial.
⁶ And you, return there to your God; / Keep lovingkindness and justice, / And wait on your God continually.
⁷ He is a merchant; / In his hand are balances of deceit; / He loves to extort.
⁸ And Ephraim said, / I have surely become rich; / I have found wealth for myself. / In all my labors / They will find with me / No iniquity, which would be sin.
⁹ But I have been Jehovah your God / Since the land of Egypt; / Yet again I will cause you to dwell in tents / As in the days of the appointed feast.
¹⁰ I have also spoken unto the prophets: / And I have multiplied vision, / And through the prophets I have used similitudes.
¹¹ Is Gilead iniquity? They are altogether vanity. / In Gilgal they sacrifice oxen; / Indeed their altars are like heaps / In the furrows of a field.
¹² And Jacob fled into the country of Aram; / And Israel served for a wife, / And for a wife he kept sheep.
¹³ And by a prophet Jehovah brought Israel up from Egypt, / And by a prophet he was kept.
¹⁴ Ephraim provoked Him to bitter anger; / Therefore his Lord will leave his bloodshed upon him / And will recompense him with his own reproach.

13

¹ When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. / He exalted himself in Israel; / But he trespassed through Baal and died.
² And now they sin more and more / And make molten images for themselves out of their silver, / Idols according to their own understanding, / All of it the work of craftsmen. / Of them they say, / Let the men who sacrifice / Kiss the calves.
³ Therefore they will be like a morning cloud / And like dew that departs early, / Like chaff driven by a storm wind from the threshing floor / And like smoke from a window vent.
⁴ But I have been Jehovah your God / Since the land of Egypt; / And you were to know no god except Me, / For there is no savior besides Me.
⁵ I knew you in the wilderness, / In the land of great drought.
⁶ According to their pasturage they became full; / They became full, and their heart was exalted; / Therefore they have forgotten Me.
⁷ Thus I will be to them like a lion; / Like a leopard I will watch them along the way.
⁸ I will meet them like a bear robbed of her cubs, / And I will tear away the covering of their heart; / And I will devour them there like a lioness; / The beast of the field will tear them to pieces.
⁹ It is your destruction, O Israel, / That you are against Me, against your help.
¹⁰ Where then is your king, / That he may save you in all your cities, / And your judges of whom you said, / Give me a king and some princes?
¹¹ I gave you a king in My anger / And took him away in My overflowing wrath.
¹² The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; / His sin is laid up in store.
¹³ The pains of a woman giving birth will come upon him. / He is an unwise son; / For he should not delay at the time / The children break forth.
¹⁴ From the power of Sheol I will ransom them; / From death I will redeem them. / Where are your plagues, O death? / Where is your destruction, O Sheol? / Repentance will be hidden from My eyes.
¹⁵ Even if he should be fruitful among his brothers, / An east wind will come, / A wind of Jehovah / Coming up from the wilderness, / And his spring will become dry, / And his fountain will be dried up. / He will plunder the treasure / Of every desirable vessel.
¹⁶ Samaria will be guilty, / For she rebelled against her God. / They will fall by the sword; / Their children will be dashed in pieces, / And their pregnant women will be ripped up.

14

¹ Return, O Israel, / To Jehovah your God, / For you have fallen by your iniquity.
² Take words with you, / And return to Jehovah; / Say to Him, / Forgive all iniquity, / And take us graciously; / Thus we will render our lips as bulls.
³ Assyria will not save us; / We will not ride upon horses. / Neither will we say again to the work of our hands, Our God! / Because in You the orphan finds compassion.
⁴ I will heal their apostasy; / I will love them freely; / For My anger has turned away from him.
⁵ I will be like the dew to Israel; / He will bud like the lily / And will send forth his roots like the trees of Lebanon.
⁶ His shoots will go forth; / And his splendor will be like that of the olive tree, / And his fragrance, like that of the trees of Lebanon.
⁷ Those who sit under his shade will return; / They will revive like grain / And will bud like the vine; / His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon.
⁸ Ephraim says, What have I yet to do with idols? / I respond and look on him. / I am like a green fir tree; / From Me your fruit is found.
⁹ Who is wise? / Then let him understand these things. / Who is intelligent? Then let him know them. / For the ways of Jehovah are right, / And the righteous will walk in them, / But the transgressors will stumble in them.