Hosea 1
About HoseaWritten by AI
Hosea is the first of the twelve shorter prophets, sometimes called the Minor Prophets because the books are short, not because they matter less. Hosea preached in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 700s BC, in its last decades before Assyria swept it away. Kings came and went quickly, and the people mixed the worship of the LORD with the worship of Baal.
The book's picture is a marriage. God tells Hosea to marry Gomer, who will be unfaithful, and Hosea's heartbreak becomes a living sermon about Israel turning from God. Readers have long asked whether this was a literal marriage or a story told to make the point; most take it as real, and either way the pain is real.
Watch how quickly the book swings between judgment and tenderness. God is wounded, not merely angry, and He keeps coming back. The last word is an invitation to return and a promise: “I will freely love them.”
Before you read Hosea 1Written by AI
God tells Hosea to marry Gomer, a woman who will be unfaithful, and their three children receive names that are messages: Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah (no compassion), and Lo-ammi (not My people). It is a hard way to begin. But read to the end of the chapter, where God already promises to turn those names around.
Hosea’s Wife and Children
This is the word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”
So Hosea went and married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Name him Jezreel, for soon I will bring the bloodshed of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. And on that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
Gomer again conceived and gave birth to a daughter, and the LORD said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I should ever forgive them. Yet I will have compassion on the house of Judah, and I will save them—not by bow or sword or war, not by horses and cavalry, but by the LORD their God.”
After she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, Gomer conceived and gave birth to a son. And the LORD said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people, and I am not your God.
Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ Then the people of Judah and of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and will go up out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel.