Hosea 2:5

¹⁷But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. ¹⁸But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”

⁸For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

¹The LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”

²¹How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

¹“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says the LORD.

²“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness. ³Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed. ⁴Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth!’?

⁵“‘Will he retain his anger forever? Will he keep it to the end?’ Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way.”

⁶Moreover, the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there. ⁷I said after she had done all these things, ‘She will return to me;’ but she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear, but she also went and played the prostitute. ⁹Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

¹²I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me,’ and I will make them a forest, and the animals of the field shall eat them. ¹³I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers and forgot me,” says the LORD.

²⁰But I have this against you, that you tolerate your^[+] woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat things sacrificed to idols. ²¹I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. ²²Behold, I will throw her and those who commit adultery with her into a bed of great oppression, unless they repent of her works. ²³I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

¹One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, ²with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality. Those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her sexual immorality.” ³He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. ⁴The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of the sexual immorality of the earth. ⁵And on her forehead a name was written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

¹⁵“‘“But you trusted in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by. It was his. ¹⁶You took some of your garments, and made for yourselves high places decked with various colors, and played the prostitute on them. This shouldn’t happen, neither shall it be.

²⁰“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.