Hosea 2:4

I will not pity the people, because they have abandoned me as [MET] prostitutes abandon their husbands.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

In Context

3If they do not do that, I will not give them food and clothes as a husband should give to his wife; I will take away those things, and I will cause their nation to become as deserted as it was on the day that I brought their ancestors out of Egypt and caused them to become a nation [MET]. I will cause their country to be like [SIM] a desert; there will be no rain to water the ground [MET].

5Their parents are like prostitutes [MET]: they have been unfaithful to me, and they have done very disgraceful things. They said, ‘We will run to our idols/gods who love us; they are the ones who give us food and water and wool and linen and olive oil, and wine to drink.’

Read all of Hosea 2

Cross References

2 Kings 9:22When Joram met Jehu, he said to him, “Are you coming on a peaceful visit?” Jehu replied, “◄How can there be peace while you and your people are prostrating themselves to worship idols and practicing very much <witchcraft/sorcery> like your mother Jezebel did?/There certainly cannot be peace while you and your people are prostrating themselves to worship idols and practicing <witchcraft/sorcery> like your mother Jezebel has been doing!►” [RHQ]

Isaiah 50:1This is also what Yahweh says: “You Israeli children, do not think [RHQ] that I forced your parents to be exiled/taken to Babylonia [MET] like some men send away their wives after giving them a paper on which they state that they were divorcing them! I certainly did not [RHQ] get rid of you like a man who sells his children to get money to pay what he owes. No, the reason that I forced you to be exiled was to punish you because of the sins that you have committed [DOU].

Jeremiah 13:14He is saying, ‘I will cause you to bash each other. Even parents will bash their children. I will not pity you or act mercifully toward you at all; pitying you will not prevent me from getting rid of you.’”

Ezekiel 8:18So I will show them that I am very angry. I will not pity them or act mercifully toward them. And even if they shout to me to help them, I will not pay attention to them.”

Hosea 1:2When Yahweh first began to give messages to me to tell to the people of Israel, he said to me, “Go and marry a prostitute. But some of her children will be born as a result of her having sex with men to whom she is not married. That will illustrate how the people of Israel have turned away from me and worship ◄idols/other gods►.”

Zechariah 1:12Then the angel asked, “Commander of the armies of angels, how long will you continue to not be merciful to Jerusalem and the other towns in Judah? You have been angry with them for 70 years!”

Matthew Henry on Hosea 2:2-6

The Sinfulness of Israel. ( b. c. 764.) 1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children… Read the whole commentary →

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