Dicite fratribus vestris: Populus meus; et sorori vestræ: Misericordiam consecuta.

Say ye to your brethren: You are my people, and to your sister: Thou hast obtained mercy.

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

Judicate matrem vestram, judicate, quoniam ipsa non uxor mea, et ego non vir ejus. Auferat fornicationes suas a facie sua, et adulteria sua de medio uberum suorum;

Judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts.

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?

ne forte expoliem eam nudam, et statuam eam secundum diem nativitatis suæ, et ponam eam quasi solitudinem, et statuam eam velut terram inviam, et interficiam eam siti.

Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born: and I will make her as a wilderness, and will set her as a land that none can pass through, and will kill her with drought.

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?

Et filiorum illius non miserebor, quoniam filii fornicationum sunt.

And I will not have mercy on her children: for they are the children of fornications.

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

Quia fornicata est mater eorum, confusa est quæ concepit eos; quia dixit: Vadam post amatores meos, qui dant panes mihi, et aquas meas, lanam meam, et linum meum, oleum meum, et potum meum.

For their mother hath committed fornication, she that conceived them is covered with shame: for she said: I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread, and my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.

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!

Propter hoc ecce ego sepiam viam tuam spinis, et sepiam eam maceria, et semitas suas non inveniet.

Wherefore behold I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will stop it up with a wall, and she shall not find her paths.

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

Et sequetur amatores suos, et non apprehendet eos; et quæret eos, et non inveniet: et dicet: Vadam, et revertar ad virum meum priorem, quia bene mihi erat tunc magis quam nunc.

And she shall follow after her lovers, and shall not overtake them: and she shall seek them, and shall not find, and she shall say: I will go, and return to my first husband, because it was better with me then, than now.

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.

Et hæc nescivit, quia ego dedi ei frumentum, et vinum, et oleum, et argentum multiplicavi ei, et aurum, quæ fecerunt Baal.

And she did not know that I gave her corn and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver, and gold, which they have used in the service of Baal.

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.

Idcirco convertar, et sumam frumentum meum in tempore suo, et vinum meum in tempore suo. Et liberabo lanam meam et linum meum, quæ operiebant ignominiam ejus.

Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its season, and my wine in its season, and I will set at liberty my wool, and my flax, which covered her disgrace.

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;

Et nunc revelabo stultitiam ejus in oculis amatorum ejus; et vir non eruet eam de manu mea;

And now I will lay open her folly in the eyes of her lovers: and no man shall deliver her out of my hand:

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

et cessare faciam omne gaudium ejus, solemnitatem ejus, neomeniam ejus, sabbatum ejus, et omnia festa tempora ejus.

And I will cause all her mirth to cease, her solemnities, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her festival times.

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

Et corrumpam vineam ejus, et ficum ejus, de quibus dixit: Mercedes hæ meæ sunt, quas dederunt mihi amatores mei; et ponam eam in saltum, et comedet eam bestia agri.

And I will destroy her vines, and her fig trees, of which she said: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me: and I will make her as a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour her.

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.

Et visitabo super eam dies Baalim, quibus accendebat incensum, et ornabatur in aure sua, et monili suo. Et ibat post amatores suos, et mei obliviscebatur, dicit Dominus.

And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, to whom she burnt incense, and decked herself out with her earrings, and with her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord.

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!

Propter hoc ecce ego lactabo eam, et ducam eam in solitudinem, et loquar ad cor ejus.

Therefore, behold I will allure her, and will lead her into the wilderness: and I will speak to her heart.

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

Et dabo ei vinitores ejus ex eodem loco, et vallem Achor, ad aperiendam spem; et canet ibi juxta dies juventutis suæ, et juxta dies ascensionis suæ de terra Ægypti.

And I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the valley of Achor for an opening of hope: and she shall sing there according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her coming up out of the land of Egypt.

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.

Et erit in die illa, ait Dominus: vocabit me, Vir meus, et non vocabit me ultra Baali.

And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord, That she shall call me: My husband, and she shall call me no more Baali.

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

Et auferam nomina Baalim de ore ejus, et non recordabitur ultra nominis eorum.

And I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and she shall no more remember their name.

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

Et percutiam cum eis fœdus in die illa, cum bestia agri, et cum volucre cæli, et cum reptili terræ; et arcum, et gladium, et bellum conteram de terra, et dormire eos faciam fiducialiter.

And in that day I will make a covenant with them, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air, and with the creeping things of the earth: and I will destroy the bow, and the sword, and war out of the land: and I will make them sleep secure.

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.

Et sponsabo te mihi in sempiternum; et sponsabo te mihi in justitia, et judicio, et in misericordia, et in miserationibus.

And I will espouse thee to me for ever: and I will espouse thee to me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in commiserations.

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

Et sponsabo te mihi in fide; et scies quia ego Dominus.

And I will espouse thee to me in faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.

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

Et erit in die illa: exaudiam, dicit Dominus, exaudiam cælos, et illi exaudient terram.

And it shall come to pass in that day: I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth.

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

Et terra exaudiet triticum, et vinum, et oleum, et hæc exaudient Jezrahel.

And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and these shall hear Jezrahel.

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

Et seminabo eam mihi in terra, et miserebor ejus quæ fuit Absque misericordia.

And I will sow her unto me in the earth, and I will have mercy on her that was without mercy.

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

Et dicam Non populo meo: Populus meus es tu; et ipse dicet: Deus meus es tu.

And I will say to that which was not my people: Thou art my people: and they shall say: Thou art my God.

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