4. I will have no pity on her children, because they are children conceived in adultery.
5. For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will seek out my lovers; they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine.
6. Therefore, I will soon fence her in with thorns; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7. Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them; she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say,“I will go back to my husband, because I was better off then than I am now.”
8. Yet until now she has refused to acknowledge that I was the onewho gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil; and that it was I who lavished on her the silver and gold – which they used in worshiping Baal!
9. Therefore, I will take back my grain during the harvest time and my new wine when it ripens; I will take away my wool and my flax which I had provided in order to clothe her.
10. Soon I will expose her lewd nakedness in front of her lovers, and no one will be able to rescue her from me!
11. I will put an end to all her celebration: her annual religious festivals, monthly new moon celebrations, and weekly Sabbath festivities – all her appointed festivals.
12. I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, “These are my wages for prostitution that my lovers gave to me!”I will turn her cultivated vines and fig trees into an uncultivated thicket, so that wild animals will devour them.
13. “I will punish her for the festival dayswhen she burned incense to the Baal idols;she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry,and went after her lovers,but she forgot me!” says the Lord.
14. However, in the future I will allure her; I will lead her back into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.