Old Testament
Hosea 3
Overview
In the book's shortest and most personal chapter, God tells Hosea to go again and love his adulterous wife — "even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods." Hosea buys her back for fifteen shekels of silver and a measure of barley, the price of a slave, and brings her home under a discipline of waiting: she must dwell with him many days without sexual relations, neither playing the whore nor belonging to another. This restrained season pictures Israel's coming days without king, sacrifice, or idol. The chapter closes with the promise that afterward Israel will return and seek the LORD and "David their king," coming in awe to His goodness in the latter days.
1Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”
2So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley.
3I 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.”
4For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, without prince, without sacrifice, without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.
5Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days.