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2:1  “Nevertheless, the people of Isra’el will number as many as the grains of sand by the sea, which cannot be measured or counted; so that the time will come when, instead of being told, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said to them, ‘You are the children of the living God.’
2:2  Then the people of Y’hudah and the people of Isra’el will be gathered together; they will appoint for themselves one leader; and they will go up out of the land; for that will be a great day, [the day] of Yizre‘el.
2:3  “Say to your brothers, ‘Ammi [My People]!’ and to your sisters, ‘Ruchamah [Pitied]!’
2:4  Rebuke your mother, rebuke her; for she isn’t my wife, and I’m not her husband. She must remove her whoring from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts.
2:5  Otherwise, I will strip her naked and place her as she was the day she was born, make her like a desert, place her like a dry land and kill her with thirst.
2:6  I will have no pity on her children, for they are children of whoring —
2:7  their mother prostituted herself, she who conceived them behaved shamelessly; she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers, who give me my food and water, wool, flax, olive oil and wine.’
2:8  Therefore, I will block her way with thorns and put up a hedge so she can’t find her paths.
2:9  She will pursue her lovers but not catch them. She will seek them but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband; because things were better for me then than they are now.’
2:10  For she doesn’t know it was I who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil; I who increased her silver and gold, which they used for Ba‘al.
2:11  So I will take back my grain at harvest-time and my wine in its season; I will snatch away my wool and flax, given to cover her naked body.
2:12  Now I will uncover her shame, while her lovers watch; and no one will save her from me.
2:13  I will end her happiness, her festivals, Rosh-Hodesh, and shabbats, and all her designated times.
2:14  I will ravage her vines and fig trees, of which she says, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’ But I will turn them into a forest, and wild animals will eat them.
2:15  I will punish her for offering incense on the feast days of the ba‘alim, when she decked herself with her earrings and jewels, pursuing her lovers and forgetting me,” says Adonai.
2:16  “But now I am going to woo her — I will bring her out to the desert and I will speak to her heart.
2:17  I will give her her vineyards from there and the Akhor Valley as a gateway to hope. She will respond there as she did when young, as she did when she came up from Egypt.
2:18  “On that day,” says Adonai “you will call me Ishi [My Husband]; you will no longer call me Ba‘ali [My Master].
2:19  For I will remove the names of the ba‘alim from her mouth; they will never again be mentioned by name.
2:20  When that day comes, I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds in the air and the creeping things of the earth. I will break bow and sword, sweep battle from the land, and make them lie down securely.
2:21  I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in grace and in compassion;
2:22  I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you will know Adonai.
2:23  When that day comes, I will answer,” says Adonai “I will answer the sky, and it will answer the earth;
2:24  the earth will answer the corn, wine and oil, and they will answer Yizre‘el [God will sow].