Daily Bible Reading

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,
‍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.
‍⁴ Upon her children also I will have no pity,
 because they are children of prostitution.
‍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.”
‍⁶ Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
 and I will build a wall against her
 so that she cannot find her paths.
‍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.”
‍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.
‍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.
‍¹¹ I will put an end to all her mirth,
 her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
 and all her appointed festivals.
‍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.
‍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.
‍¹⁴ Therefore, I will now allure her
 and bring her into the wilderness
 and speak tenderly to her.