Hosea 3 WEB
Summary: In a second sign-act, Hosea is told to love and buy back an adulterous woman — understood as Gomer again — for silver and barley, illustrating the LORD's persistent love for Israel despite her turning to other gods. He requires her to live with him many days without playing the harlot or having a husband, symbolizing a coming period in which Israel will exist without king, prince, sacrifice, pillar, ephod, or household gods. Only afterward will the Israelites return and seek the LORD their God and David their king, coming in awe to his goodness "in the latter days" (v. 5).
1Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”
2So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley.
3I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”
4For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.
5Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days.
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