Hosea 3

¹ Yahweh said to me, 'Go again, love a woman who loves another man, an adulteress, and love her asYahweh loves the Israelites although they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.'

² So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver, a homer of barley and a skin of wine,

³ and I said to her, 'You wil have to spend a long time waiting for me without playing the whore andwithout giving yourself to any man, and I wil behave in the same way towards you.'

⁴ For the Israelites wil have to spend a long time without king or leader, without sacrifice or sacred pil ar,without ephod or domestic images;

⁵ but after that, the Israel- ites wil return and again seek Yahweh their God and David their king, and turntrembling to Yahweh for his bounty in the final days.