Scandalous Love in Six Dimensions

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1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

2 But the more they were called, the more they went away from me.

They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.

3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms;

but they did not realize it was I who healed them.

4 I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. ?To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, ?and I bent down to feed them.

5 “Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them ?because they refuse to repent?

6 Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates ?and put an end to their plans.

7 My people are determined to turn from me. ?Even though they call me God Most High, I will by no means exalt them.

8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? ?How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboyim? ?My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.

9 I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. ?For I am God, and not a human being— the Holy One among you. ?I will not come against their cities.

10 They will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. ?When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west.

11 They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. ?I will settle them in their homes,” declares the LORD.

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Hos. 3:1 The LORD said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

    2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

    4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.

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I Jn 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

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Dt 5:6 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 7 “You shall have no other gods before me.”

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Hos 1:2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”

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2:13 “[Israel] went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord.

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16 “In that day,” declares the Lord,

“you will call me ‘my husband;’

you will no longer call me ‘my Baal.’

17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;

no longer will their names be invoked.

18 In that day I will make a covenant for them

with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky

and the creatures that move along the ground.

Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land,

so that all may lie down in safety.

19 I will betroth you to me forever;

I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,

in love and compassion.

20 I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.

21 “In that day I will respond,”declares the Lord—

“I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth;

22 and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and the olive oil,

and they will respond to Jezreel.

23 I will plant her for myself in the land;

I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’

I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people;’

and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”

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Jn 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

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Dt 5:6 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 7 “You shall have no other gods before me.”

  * * *

Hos 1:2 When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”

Hos 2:13 “[Israel] went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord.

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Hos 2:16 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband;’ you will no longer call me ‘my Baal.’

17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;

no longer will their names be invoked.

18 In that day I will make a covenant for them

with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky

and the creatures that move along the ground.

Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land,

so that all may lie down in safety.

19 I will betroth you to me forever;

I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.

20 I will betroth you in faithfulness,

and you will acknowledge the Lord.

21 “In that day I will respond,” declares the Lord—

“I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth;

22 and the earth will respond to the grain,

the new wine and the olive oil,

and they will respond to Jezreel.

23 I will plant her for myself in the land;

I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’

I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people;’

and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”

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Jn 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

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1:2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

  4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

  6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God.”

    8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the LORD said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

   10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

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2:12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.

13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. 15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

16 “In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.]’ 17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. 18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.

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1 The word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:

    2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD.” 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

    4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God.”

    8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the LORD said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

   10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ 11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

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2:1"Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

    2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, or she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. 3 Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.

    4 I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery. 5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. ?     She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

    6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. 7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. ?    Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’

    8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold— which they used for Baal. 9 Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness. 10 So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands. 11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals. 12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. 13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.