Knox Bible

1

God’s-folk and Befriended, these are the names they should have by rights, brother and sister of yours.

2

Blame her, blame your mother, that she is no true wife of mine, nor I any longer her Lord. Must she still flaunt the harlot’s face of her, the wantonness of her breasts?

3

Must I strip her, leave her naked as babe new-born, leave her desolate as the barren waste, the trackless desert, to die of thirst?

4

Those children of hers, must I needs leave them unpitied, the children of her shame?

5

Harlot mother of theirs brought reproach on the womb that bore them; Haste I away, she said, to those gallants of mine, the gods of whose gift bread comes to me, and water, wool and flax, oil and wine!

6

See if I do not hedge her way about with thorns, fence in her prospect, till way she can find none!

7

Then, it may be, when her gallants she courts in vain, searches for them in vain, she will have other thoughts: Back go I to the husband that was mine once; things were better with me in days gone by.

8

Yet I it was, did she but know it, that bread and wine and oil gave her, gave her all the silver and gold she squandered on Baal.

9

And now I mean to revoke the gift; no harvest for her, no vintage; I will give wool and flax a holiday, that once laboured to cover her shame;

10

no gallant of hers but shall see and mock at it; such is my will, and none shall thwart me.

11

Gone the days of rejoicing, the days of solemnity; gone is new moon, and sabbath, and festival;

12

vine and fig-tree blighted, whose fruit, she told herself, was but the hire those lovers paid; all shall be woodland, for the wild beasts to ravage as they will.

13

Penance she must do for that hey-day of idolatry, when the incense smoked, and out she went, all rings and necklaces, to meet her lovers, the gods of the country-side, and for me, the Lord says, never a thought!

14

It is but love’s stratagem, thus to lead her out into the wilderness; once there, it shall be all words of comfort.

15

Clad in vineyards that wilderness shall be, that vale of sad memory✻ a passage-way of hope; and a song shall be on her lips, the very music of her youth, when I rescued her from Egypt long ago.

16

Husband she calls me now, the Lord says, Master no longer;

17

that name I stifle on her lips; master-gods of the country-side must all be forgotten.✻

18

Beast and bird and creeping thing to peace pledge I; bow and sword and war’s alarms break I; all shall sleep safe abed, the folk that dwell in her.

19

Everlastingly I will betroth thee to myself, favour and redress and mercy of mine thy dowry;

20

by the keeping of his troth thou shalt learn to know the Lord.

21

When that day comes, heaven shall win answer, the Lord says, answer from me; and from heaven, earth;

22

and from earth, the corn and wine and oil it nourishes; and from these, the people of my sowing.✻

23

Deep, deep I will sow them in the land I love; a friend, now, to her that was Unbefriended;

24

to a people that was none of mine I will say, Thou art my people, and they to me, Thou art my God.