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So call your fellow Israelites "God's People" and "Loved-by-the-Lord."
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My children, plead with your mother---though she is no longer a wife to me, and I am no longer her husband. Plead with her to stop her adultery and prostitution.
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If she does not, I will strip her as naked as she was on the day she was born. I will make her like a dry and barren land, and she will die of thirst.
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I will not show mercy to her children; they are the children of a shameless prostitute. She herself said, "I will go to my lovers---they give me food and water, wool and linen, olive oil and wine."
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So I am going to fence her in with thorn bushes and build a wall to block her way.
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She will run after her lovers but will not catch them. She will look for them but will not find them. Then she will say, "I am going back to my first husband---I was better off then than I am now."
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She would never acknowledge that I am the one who gave her the grain, the wine, the olive oil, and all the silver and gold that she used in the worship of Baal.
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So at harvest time I will take back my gifts of grain and wine, and will take away the wool and the linen I gave her for clothing.
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I will strip her naked in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to save her from my power.
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I will put an end to all her festivities---her annual and monthly festivals and her Sabbath celebrations---all her religious meetings.
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I will destroy her grapevines and her fig trees, which she said her lovers gave her for serving them. I will turn her vineyards and orchards into a wilderness; wild animals will destroy them.
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I will punish her for the times that she forgot me, when she burned incense to Baal and put on her jewelry to go chasing after her lovers. The LORD has spoken.
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So I am going to take her into the desert again; there I will win her back with words of love.
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I will give back to her the vineyards she had and make Trouble Valley a door of hope. She will respond to me there as she did when she was young, when she came from Egypt.
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Then once again she will call me her husband---she will no longer call me her Baal.
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I will never let her speak the name of Baal again.
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At that time I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and birds, so that they will not harm my people. I will also remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, and will let my people live in peace and safety.
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Israel, I will make you my wife; I will be true and faithful; I will show you constant love and mercy and make you mine forever.
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I will keep my promise and make you mine, and you will acknowledge me as LORD.
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At that time I will answer the prayers of my people Israel. I will make rain fall on the earth, and the earth will produce grain and grapes and olives.
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I will establish my people in the land and make them prosper. I will show love to those who were called "Unloved," and to those who were called "Not-My-People" I will say, "You are my people," and they will answer, "You are our God."
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The LORD said to me, "Go again and show your love for a woman who is committing adultery with a lover. You must love her just as I still love the people of Israel, even though they turn to other gods and like to take offerings of raisins to idols."
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So I paid fifteen pieces of silver and seven bushels of barley to buy her.
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I told her that for a long time she would have to wait for me without being a prostitute or committing adultery; and during this time I would wait for her.
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In just this way the people of Israel will have to live for a long time without kings or leaders, without sacrifices or sacred stone pillars, without idols or images to use for divination.
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But the time will come when the people of Israel will once again turn to the LORD their God and to a descendant of David their king. Then they will fear the LORD and will receive his good gifts.
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The LORD has an accusation to bring against the people who live in this land. Listen, Israel, to what he says: "There is no faithfulness or love in the land, and the people do not acknowledge me as God.
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They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.
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And so the land will dry up, and everything that lives on it will die. All the animals and birds, and even the fish, will die."
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The LORD says, "Let no one accuse the people or reprimand them---my complaint is against you priests.
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Night and day you blunder on, and the prophets do no better than you. I am going to destroy Israel, your mother.
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My people are doomed because they do not acknowledge me. You priests have refused to acknowledge me and have rejected my teaching, and so I reject you and will not acknowledge your sons as my priests.
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"The more of you priests there are, the more you sin against me, and so I will turn your honor into disgrace.
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You grow rich from the sins of my people, and so you want them to sin more and more.
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You will suffer the same punishment as the people! I will punish you and make you pay for the evil you do.
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You will eat your share of the sacrifices, but still be hungry. You will worship the fertility gods, but still have no children, because you have turned away from me to follow other gods."
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The LORD says, "Wine, both old and new, is robbing my people of their senses!
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They ask for revelations from a piece of wood! A stick tells them what they want to know! They have left me. Like a woman who becomes a prostitute, they have given themselves to other gods.
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At sacred places on the mountaintops they offer sacrifices, and on the hills they burn incense under tall, spreading trees, because the shade is so pleasant! "As a result, your daughters serve as prostitutes, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
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Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, 'A people without sense will be ruined.'
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"Even though you people of Israel are unfaithful to me, may Judah not be guilty of the same thing. Don't worship at Gilgal or Bethaven, or make promises there in the name of the living LORD.
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The people of Israel are as stubborn as mules. How can I feed them like lambs in a meadow?
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The people of Israel are under the spell of idols. Let them go their own way.
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After drinking much wine, they delight in their prostitution, preferring disgrace to honor.
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They will be carried away as by the wind, and they will be ashamed of their pagan sacrifices.
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"Listen to this, you priests! Pay attention, people of Israel! Listen, you that belong to the royal family! You are supposed to judge with justice---so judgment will fall on you! You have become a trap at Mizpah, a net spread on Mount Tabor,
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a deep pit at Acacia City, and I will punish all of you.
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I know what Israel is like---she cannot hide from me. She has been unfaithful, and her people are unfit to worship me."
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The evil that the people have done keeps them from returning to their God. Idolatry has a powerful hold on them, and they do not acknowledge the LORD.
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The arrogance of the people of Israel cries out against them. Their sins make them stumble and fall, and the people of Judah fall with them.
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They take their sheep and cattle to offer as sacrifices to the LORD, but it does them no good. They cannot find him, for he has left them.
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They have been unfaithful to the LORD; their children do not belong to him. So now they and their lands will soon be destroyed.
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Blow the war trumpets in Gibeah! Sound the alarm in Ramah! Raise the war cry at Bethaven! Into battle, men of Benjamin!
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The day of punishment is coming, and Israel will be ruined. People of Israel, this will surely happen!
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The LORD says, "I am angry because the leaders of Judah have invaded Israel and stolen land from her. So I will pour out punishment on them like a flood.
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Israel is suffering oppression; she has lost land that was rightfully hers, because she insisted on going for help to those who had none to give.
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I will bring destruction on Israel and ruin on the people of Judah.
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"When Israel saw how sick she was and when Judah saw her own wounds, then Israel went to Assyria to ask the great emperor for help, but he could not cure them or heal their wounds.
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I will attack the people of Israel and Judah like a lion. I myself will tear them to pieces and then leave them. When I drag them off, no one will be able to save them.
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"I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me."
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That is why we must hold on all the more firmly to the truths we have heard, so that we will not be carried away.
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The message given to our ancestors by the angels was shown to be true, and those who did not follow it or obey it received the punishment they deserved.
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How, then, shall we escape if we pay no attention to such a great salvation? The Lord himself first announced this salvation, and those who heard him proved to us that it is true.
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At the same time God added his witness to theirs by performing all kinds of miracles and wonders and by distributing the gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will.
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God has not placed the angels as rulers over the new world to come---the world of which we speak.
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Instead, as it is said somewhere in the Scriptures: "What are human beings, O God, that you should think of them; mere human beings, that you should care for them?
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You made them for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor,
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and made them rulers over all things." It says that God made them "rulers over all things"; this clearly includes everything. We do not, however, see human beings ruling over all things now.
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But we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, so that through God's grace he should die for everyone. We see him now crowned with glory and honor because of the death he suffered.
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It was only right that God, who creates and preserves all things, should make Jesus perfect through suffering, in order to bring many children to share his glory. For Jesus is the one who leads them to salvation.
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He purifies people from their sins, and both he and those who are made pure all have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his family.
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He says to God, "I will tell my people what you have done; I will praise you in their meeting."
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He also says, "I will put my trust in God." And he also says, "Here I am with the children that God has given me."
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Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death,
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and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death.
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For it is clear that it is not the angels that he helps. Instead, he helps the descendants of Abraham.
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This means that he had to become like his people in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in his service to God, so that the people's sins would be forgiven.
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And now he can help those who are tempted, because he himself was tempted and suffered.
