Hosea
King James Version · 14 chapters · 197 verses · Old Testament
A marriage as a message
The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri. God tells him to marry a woman who will be unfaithful to him, and to keep loving her anyway, and to name their children Loruhamah, for I will no more have mercy, and Loammi, for ye are not my people. It is the hardest object lesson ever given to a prophet: Israel has treated God the way Gomer treated Hosea. He is told to go and buy her back after she has sold herself, and he does. The book alternates between real anger and a tenderness that will not let go, and the tenderness has the last word.