The Lord condemns Israel for its spiritual adultery, comparing it to a wife who has abandoned her husband for lovers, and warns of punishment, including the removal of its blessings and the destruction of its idols. However, the Lord also promises to restore Israel, speaking to its heart in the wilderness and giving it a new chance, and to make a new covenant with it, one of justice, mercy, and faith. The Lord will also restore the land's fertility and cause Israel to acknowledge Him as its God.
1 "Say to your brothers, ‘You are my people,’ and to your sister, ‘You have obtained mercy. 2 Judge your mother, judge: for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove her fornications from before her face and her adulteries from between her breasts 3 Otherwise, I may expose her nakedness and set her as on the day of her birth, and I may establish her as a wilderness and set her as an impassable land, and I may execute her with thirst 4 And I will not have mercy on her sons, for they are the sons of fornications 5 For their mother has been fornicating; she who conceived them has been brought to ruin. 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 Because of this, behold, I will fence in your way with thorns, and I will surround it with a wall, and she will not find her paths 7 And she will pursue her lovers, but she will not obtain them, and she will seek them, but she will not find them, and she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, because it was to some extent better for me then, than it is now. 8 And she did not know that I gave her grain and wine and oil, and that I increased her silver and gold, which they made into Baal 9 For this reason, I will turn back, and I will take away my grain in its time and my wine in its time, and I will set free my wool and my flax, which had covered her disgrace 10 And now, I will reveal her foolishness by the eyes of her lovers, and no man will rescue her from my hand 11 And I will cause all her joy to cease: her solemnities, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her feast dates 12 And I will corrupt her vines and her fig trees, about which she said, ‘These rewards, they are mine, my lovers have given them to me.’ And I will place her in a narrow forest, and the beasts of the field will devour her 13 And I will inflict on her the days of the Baals, for whom she burned incense, and ornamented herself with earrings and necklace, and went after her lovers, and forgot about me," says the Lord 14 "Because of this, behold, I will attract her, and I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart 15 And I will give to her, from the same place, her vinedressers, and the valley of Achor as a passage of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the days of her ascension from the land of Egypt 16 And it will be in that day," says the Lord, "that she will call me, ‘My Husband,’ and she will no longer call me, ‘My Baal. 17 And I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and she will no longer remember their name 18 And in that day, I will strike a deal with them, with the beasts of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creatures of the earth. And I will crush the bow and the sword, and I will wipe away war from the earth. And I will let them sleep securely 19 And I will betroth you to me forever, and I will betroth you to me in justice and judgment, and in mercy and compassion 20 And I will wed you to me in faith, and you will know that I am the Lord 21 And this will happen in that day: I will listen closely," says the Lord. "I will hear the heavens, and they will hear the earth 22 And the land will pay attention to the grain, and the wine, and the oil; and these will hear Jezreel 23 And I will plant her for me in the land, and I will have mercy on her, though she had been called Without Mercy 24 And I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people,’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’