Hosea 2:7-10
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
7 Yes, their mother has prostituted herself;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers,[a]
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”(A)
8 [b]Therefore, I will hedge in her way with thorns
and erect a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
9 If she runs after her lovers, she will not overtake them;
if she seeks them she will not find them.
Then she will say,
“I will go back to my first husband,
for I was better off then than now.”(B)
10 She did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
I who lavished upon her silver,
and gold, which they used for Baal,[c]
Footnotes
- 2:7 My lovers: even though Israel had experienced the Lord as the God of the desert, covenant and conquest, the people were inclined to turn to the local fertility deities, the Baals, who were believed to be responsible for agricultural success. They easily forgot that the Lord provides them with everything (v. 10; cf. Dt 7:13), and thus prostituted themselves by worshiping other gods.
- 2:8 The crop failures sent by the Lord are meant to make Israel see the folly of its ways.
- 2:10 For Baal: as an offering to Baal or to make statues of Baal.
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