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Haftara Bemidbar

Hosea 2.1-22

The children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, that cannot be measured or numbered. Then, instead of saying to them You are not my people, I will tell them: You are the children of the living God, Then the children of Judah and Israel will unite, and choose for themselves one head; and they will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Call your brothers “Ammi” (My people), and your sisters “Ruchamah” (pitted).

Contend with your mother; contend, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband; that she remove her harloties from her face, and her adulteries from between he breasts; or I will strip her naked, and make her as the day she was born; and make her like a wilderness, and leave her like a dry land, and slay her with thrust. I will have no mercy on her children; for they are children of harlotry.

For their mother has played the harlot; she conceived them has been shameless. For she said; “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.” Therefore, I will hedge your path with thorns, and build a wall against her, so she will not find her paths. She will pursue her lovers, but will not catch up with them, and she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say; “I will go and return to my first husband; for it was better with me than it is now.”

For she did not know that I was the one who gave her the corn, the wine, the oil; and gave her much silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

Therefore, I will take back My corn in its time, and My wine in its season, and snatch away My wool and flax which I gave to cover her nakedness. Now I will uncover her nakedness in front of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from My hand.

I will end all her mirth, her feasts, her New Moons, her Sabbaths, and her appointed times. I will blight her vines and fig trees, concerning which she said: “These are my pay that my lovers gave me.” I will make them a forest and the beasts of the field will eat them.

I will punish her for the days of the Baalim, in which she offered to them, and bedecked herself with earrings and jewels, and went after lovers, and forgot Me, says God. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and take her to the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley  of Anchor (troubling) for a door of hope. She shall respond there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came out of the land of Egypt.

And in that day, says God, you will call Me “Ishi” (my husband), instead of “Baali” (my master). For I will take away the names of the Baalim from her lips, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.

On that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will destroy the bow, the sword and the battle from the land, and make them safe to lie down.

I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes I will betroth you to Me in righteousness, in justice, in kindness, and in compassion. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness; and you shall know God.