Hosea 1-4
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel.
The Family of Hosea
2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of prostitution, for the land commits great prostitution by forsaking the Lord.”(A) 3 So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
4 And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel,[a] for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.(B) 5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”(C)
6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah,[b] for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them.(D) 7 But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”(E)
8 When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi,[c] for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”[d]
The Restoration of Israel
10 [e]Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered, and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”(F) 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall rise up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.(G)
2 [f]Say to your brothers, “Ammi,”[g] and to your sisters, “Ruhamah.”[h]
Israel’s Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption
2 Plead with your mother, plead—
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband—
that she put away her prostitution from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts,(H)
3 or I will strip her naked
and expose her as in the day she was born
and make her like a wilderness
and turn her into a parched land
and kill her with thirst.(I)
4 Upon her children also I will have no pity,
because they are children of prostitution.(J)
5 For their mother has prostituted herself;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
they give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”(K)
6 Therefore I will hedge up her[i] way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her
so that she cannot find her paths.(L)
7 She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, “I will go
and return to my first husband,
for it was better with me then than now.”(M)
8 She did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold that they used for Baal.(N)
9 Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.(O)
11 I will put an end to all her mirth,
her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
and all her appointed festivals.(P)
12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
“These are my pay,
which my lovers have given me.”
I will make them a forest,
and the wild animals shall devour them.(Q)
13 I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
to whom she offered incense
and decked herself with her rings and jewelry
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, says the Lord.(R)
14 Therefore, I will now allure her
and bring her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.(S)
15 From there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.(T)
16 On that day, says the Lord, you will call me “my husband,” and no longer will you call me “my Baal.”[j] 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.(U) 18 I will make for you[k] a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground, and I will abolish[l] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you[m] lie down in safety.(V) 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.(W) 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.(X)
21 On that day I will answer, says the Lord,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
22 and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,[n](Y)
23 and I will sow him[o] for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah,[p]
and I will say to Lo-ammi,[q] “You are my people,”
and he shall say, “You are my God.”(Z)
Further Assurances of God’s Redeeming Love
3 The Lord said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”(AA) 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine.[r](AB) 3 And I said to her, “You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not prostitute yourself; you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.” 4 For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim.(AC) 5 Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; they shall come in awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.(AD)
God Accuses Israel
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel,
for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty
and no knowledge of God in the land.(AE)
2 Swearing, lying, and murder,
and stealing and adultery break out;
bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Therefore the land mourns,
and all who live in it languish;
together with the wild animals
and the birds of the air,
even the fish of the sea are perishing.(AF)
4 Yet let no one contend,
and let none accuse,
for with you is my contention, O priest.[s](AG)
5 You shall stumble by day;
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night,
and I will destroy your mother.(AH)
6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge!
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me;
and since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.(AI)
7 The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
they changed[t] their glory into shame.(AJ)
8 They feed on the sin of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
9 And it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.(AK)
10 They shall eat but not be satisfied;
they shall prostitute themselves but not multiply,
because they have forsaken the Lord
to devote themselves to(AL) 11 prostitution.
The Idolatry of Israel
Wine and new wine
take away the understanding.(AM)
12 My people consult a piece of wood,
and their divining rod gives them oracles.
For a spirit of prostitution has led them astray,
and they have prostituted themselves, forsaking their God.(AN)
13 They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
and make offerings upon the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters prostitute themselves,
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.(AO)
14 I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves
nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery,
for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
and sacrifice with female attendants;
thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.(AP)
15 Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel,
do not let Judah become guilty.
Do not enter into Gilgal
or go up to Beth-aven,
and do not swear, “As the Lord lives.”(AQ)
16 Like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
like a lamb in a broad pasture?(AR)
17 Ephraim is joined to idols—
let him alone.
18 When their drinking is ended, they indulge in sexual orgies;
they love lewdness more than their glory.[u](AS)
19 A wind has wrapped them[v] in its wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.[w](AT)
Footnotes
- 1.4 That is, God sows
- 1.6 That is, not pitied
- 1.9 That is, not my people
- 1.9 Heb I am not yours
- 1.10 2.1 in Heb
- 2.1 2.3 in Heb
- 2.1 That is, my people
- 2.1 That is, pitied
- 2.6 Gk Syr: Heb your
- 2.16 That is, “my master”
- 2.18 Heb them
- 2.18 Heb break
- 2.18 Heb them
- 2.22 That is, God sows
- 2.23 Cn: Heb her
- 2.23 That is, not pitied
- 2.23 That is, not my people
- 3.2 Gk: Heb a homer of barley and a lethek of barley
- 4.4 Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 4.7 Tg Syr: MT I will change
- 4.18 Cn Compare Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 4.19 Heb her
- 4.19 Gk Syr: Heb sacrifices
Revelation 1
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Introduction and Salutation
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place, and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,(A) 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.(B)
3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,(C) 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed[a] us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests serving[b] his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.(D)
7 Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him,
and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
So it is to be. Amen.(E)
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.(F)
A Vision of Christ
9 I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.[c](G) 10 I was in the spirit[d] on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet(H) 11 saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,(I) 13 and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.(J) 14 His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;(K) 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.(L) 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.(M)
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last(N) 18 and the Living One. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.(O) 19 Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. 20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.(P)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.