Chapter 2

  Say to your brothers, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.  

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  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;  

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  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.  

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  And I will have no mercy on her children, for they are the children of her loose ways.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  And now I will make her shame clear before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will take her out of my hand.  

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  And I will put an end to all her joy, her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her regular meetings.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  For this cause I will make her come into the waste land and will say words of comfort to her.  

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  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.  

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  And in that day, says the Lord, you will say to me, Ishi; and you will never again give me the name of Baali;  

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  For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and never again will she say their names.  

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  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.  

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  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.  

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  I will take you as my bride in good faith, and you will have knowledge of the Lord.  

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  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;  

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  And the earth will give its answer to the grain and the wine and the oil, and they will give an answer to Jezreel;  

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  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.  

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