The Bible Study podcast, episode 730.

Today, the Bible study podcast continues the study of the book of Hosea with chapter two.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

Chapter two of Hosea starts this way.

Save your brothers, my people, and of your sisters, my loved one. Israel punished and restored.

Rebuk your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the

adulterous look from her face and the

unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise, I will strip her naked and make her as bare

as on the day she was born. I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land,

and slay her with thirst. I will not show love to her children because they are the children

of adultery. Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said,

I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive

oil and my drink. Therefore, I will block her path with thorn bushes. I will wall her

in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers, but not catch them. She will look for

them, but not find them. Then she will say, I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was

better off than now. She has not acknowledged that I was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine, and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold,

which they used for baal. Therefore, I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine

when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen,

intended to cover her naked body, so now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers.

No one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations, her yearly festivals,

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