Prophetic Call to Genuine Repentance

¹Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,

for your sin has been your downfall!

²Return to the Lord and repent![#tn Heb “Take words with you and return to the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).]

Say to him: “Completely forgive our iniquity;

accept our penitential prayer,

that we may offer the praise of our lips as sacrificial bulls.

³Assyria cannot save us;

we will not ride warhorses.

We will never again say, ‘Our gods’

to what our own hands have made.

For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!”

Divine Promise to Relent from Judgment and to Restore Blessings

⁴“I will heal their waywardness[#sn The noun מְשׁוּבָתָה (mÿshuvatah, “waywardness”; cf. KJV “backsliding”) is from the same root as שׁוּבָה (shuvah, “return!”) in 14:1[2]. This repetition of שׁוּב (shuv) creates a wordplay which emphasizes reciprocity: if Israel will return (שׁוּבָה, shuvah) to the Lord, he will cure her of the tendency to turn away (מְשׁוּבָתָה) from him.]

and love them freely,

for my anger will turn away from them.

⁵I will be like the dew to Israel;

he will blossom like a lily,

he will send down his roots like a cedar of Lebanon.

⁶His young shoots will grow;

his splendor will be like an olive tree,

his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.

⁷People will reside again in his shade;[#tn Hosea uses the similar-sounding terms יָשֻׁבוּ יֹשְׁבֵי (yashuvu yoshve, “the dwellers will return”) to create a wordplay between the roots שׁוּב (shuv, “to return”) and יָשַׁב (yashav, “to dwell; to reside”).]

they will plant and harvest grain in abundance.

They will blossom like a vine,

and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

⁸O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore![#tn The Hebrew expression מַה־לִּי עוֹד (mah-li ’od) is a formula of repudiation/emphatic denial that God has anything in common with idols: “I want to have nothing to do with […] any more!” Cf., e.g., Judg 11:12; 2 Sam 16:10; 19:23; 1 Kgs 17:18; 2 Kgs 3:13; 2 Chr 35:21; Jer 2:18; Ps 50:16; BDB 553 s.v. מָה 1.d.(c).]

I will answer him and care for him.

I am like a luxuriant cypress tree;

your fruitfulness comes from me!

Concluding Exhortation

⁹Who is wise?

Let him discern these things!

Who is discerning?

Let him understand them!

For the ways of the Lord are right;

the godly walk in them,

but in them the rebellious stumble.