Unfaithful Israel

⁶ During the reign of King Josiah,^(A) the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless^(B) Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree^(C) and has committed adultery^(D) there.

¹¹ “Her sister Oholibah saw this,^(A) yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister.^{(B) 12} She too lusted after the Assyrians—governors and commanders, warriors in full dress, mounted horsemen, all handsome young men.^{(C) 13} I saw that she too defiled herself; both of them went the same way.^(D)

¹⁴ “But she carried her prostitution still further. She saw men portrayed on a wall,^(E) figures of Chaldeans^[a] portrayed in red,^{(F) 15} with belts^(G) around their waists and flowing turbans on their heads; all of them looked like Babylonian chariot officers, natives of Chaldea.^{[b] 16} As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers^(H) to them in Chaldea.^{(I) 17} Then the Babylonians^(J) came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her. After she had been defiled by them, she turned away from them in disgust.^{(K) 18} When she carried on her prostitution openly and exposed her naked body,^(L) I turned away^(M) from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister.^{(N) 19} Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. ²⁰ There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Hosea’s Wife and Children

² When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous^(A) woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness^(B) to the Lord.”