Hosea 2 – Trouble valley becomes opening of hope for Ammi (My people)

Hosea 2

1: Declare to your brothers, My people (Ammi) and your sisters, Mercy (Ruchama)

2: Argue with your mother, Argue that she is not my woman and neither am I, – I, her man –

And have her turn aside her face from her prostitutions and her adulteries from within her breast

3: Lest I cause her to be stripped naked, cause her to be exhibited like on the day she was born. And I make her like a wilderness, make her like a dry land and cause her to die with thirst.

4: And to her children – Lo-Eh-rachem (No mercy) for sons of prostitution they are.

5: For prostituted mother, Conceiver caused to be made dry (barren) said, ‘I will walk after my lovers, givers of my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.

6: Therefore behold – Fenced is your path with pots (?thorns), and walled off are her walls and she cannot find her trodden paths.

7: And she races to her lovers but is caused not to reach them and sought them but does not find them. And she said, I will turn back and walk to my first man for it was good for me then than now.

8: For she did not know that I, I gave her grain and fresh wine and fresh oil and caused her silver and gold to increase – which were made for a lord.

9: Therefore I turn back and take back my seasonal grain and my seasonal new wine, I caused my wool and my linen clothing to be stripped off her till she is naked.

10: And now I uncover her shamelessness in view of her lovers and no man will cause her to be rescued from my hand.

11: And I caused all exultation to cease on her festival days, her monthly anniversaries and her sabbaths and all her appointed feast days.

12: And I caused her vines and fig trees (of which she said these are my fee which my lovers gave to me) to be destroyed and I will set them out as fa forest where the beasts of the field ate.

13: And I punished her for the days when she burnt incense to her masters and put on rings and jewellery and walked after lovers  but Me she forgot says Yehowah. Think about that!

14: Therefore, behold, I, I will open (for) her, I will cause her to walk the wilderness and exclaim to her heart

15: I will give to her her vineyards there and the valley of trouble to her an opening (pathakh) of expectation (hope, tikvah).

16: And it was in the day, He, Yehowah, says, You call me, “My Man” and no longer, not anymore to me, “My Master” (Ba’ali).

17: and I will cause the names of the masters to be turned aside (plucked out) of her mouth. And their names are being remembered no more.

18: In day, I etch a covenant to them. It is to the living beings of the fields, and to the birds of the heavens, to the things that move about on the ground. And I shatter bow and sword from the land. And I made them lie down trustingly.

19: and I betrothed you to me forever.

 And I betrothed you to me in righteousness and in judgment and in mercy and in loving kindnesses (rachamim).

20: And I betrothed you to me in faithfulness.

And you knew Your Yehowah.

21: In day, it was that I respond to him says Yehowah. I respond to the land

22: and the land responds to the grain and to the new wine and to the fresh oil. And they respond to ‘God-does’ (Izrel).

23: and I sowed (Izrelled)  her for myself in the land.

And I had mercy (Richamthi ie rachammed) on ‘No-mercy’ ( Lo-Ruchama).

And I said to ‘Not-my-people’ (Lo-Ammi), “Ammi (My-people) you are!”

And he said, “My God” (Elohi)!

Think about that!