The Skeptics Annotated Bible (676 page)

10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

2
Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

(2.2-3) God (or Hosea?) tells his children that their mother is a whore who is not his wife. He asks them to tell their mother to “put away her whoredoms” and “her adulteries from between her breasts” or he’ll “strip her naked … and slay her with thirst.”

2
Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

(2.2)
“Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts.”

3
Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born
, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land,
and slay her with thirst.

(2.3)
“Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born … and slay her with thirst.”

(2.4-5) God “will not have mercy upon … the children of whoredoms. For their mother hath played the harlot.”

4 And
I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

(2.4)
“I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.”

5
For their mother hath played the harlot
: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

(2.5)
“For their mother hath played the harlot.”

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

10 And
now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

(2.10)
“Now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.”

11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

12 And
I will destroy
her vines and
her fig trees
, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.