BibleInTonguesWEB
Hosea 3
A brief, intensely personal chapter: God tells Hosea to go again and love an adulterous woman, mirroring how the LORD loves Israel even while they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins (v.1). Hosea pays a price to take her back, fifteen pieces of silver and a measure of barley (v.2). The sign is enacted restraint. She is to stay many days without a man, and Hosea toward her likewise (v.3). Verses 4-5 then translate that waiting into Israel's own future, a long stretch deprived before a return.
- 1
The LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”
- 2
So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley.
- 3
I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”
- 4
For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.
- 5
Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.
A long waiting that mirrors the nation
The household sign interprets itself in verse 4: many days for Israel without king or prince, without sacrifice, sacred stone, ephod, or idols. The deprivation strips away both legitimate worship and the forbidden props at once, an enforced emptiness rather than a quick punishment.
Verse 5 names what the waiting is for. Afterward the children of Israel return and seek the LORD their God and David their king, coming with trembling in the last days. The chapter compresses the whole book's arc, discipline as the road back, into five verses.
Context layers
Keep these closed by default and open them only when you want more context.
Share a small range via:
/en/web/hosea/3/16-18
Or use the Passage link builder.