6¹ "Come on, let's go back to God. He hurt us, but he'll heal us. He hit us hard, but he'll put us right again. ² In a couple of days we'll feel better. By the third day he'll have made us brand-new, Alive and on our feet, fit to face him. ³ We're ready to study God, eager for God-knowledge. As sure as dawn breaks, so sure is his daily arrival. He comes as rain comes, as spring rain refreshing the ground."

⁴ "What am I to do with you, Ephraim? What do I make of you, Judah? Your declarations of love last no longer than morning mist and predawn dew. ⁵ That's why I use prophets to shake you to attention, why my words cut you to the quick: To wake you up to my judgment blazing like light. ⁶ I'm after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings. ⁷ You broke the covenant - just like Adam! You broke faith with me - ungrateful wretches! ⁸ "Gilead has become Crime City - blood on the sidewalks, blood on the streets. ⁹ It used to be robbers who mugged pedestrians. Now it's gangs of priests Assaulting worshipers on their way to Shechem. Nothing is sacred to them. ¹⁰ "I saw a shocking thing in the country of Israel: Ephraim worshiping in a religious whorehouse, and Israel in the mud right there with him. ¹¹ "You're as bad as the worst of them, Judah. You've been sowing wild oats. Now it's harvest time.

6¹ Come and let us return unto Jehovah: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. ² After two days will he revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before his face; ³ and we shall know,—we shall follow on to know Jehovah: his going forth is assured as the morning dawn; and he will come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain which watereth the earth.

⁴ What shall I do unto thee, Ephraim? What shall I do unto thee, Judah? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that early passeth away. ⁵ Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and my judgment goeth forth as the light. ⁶ For I delight in loving-kindness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings. ⁷ But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. ⁸ Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity; it is tracked with blood. ⁹ And as troops of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way of Shechem; yea, they commit lewdness. ¹⁰ In the house of Israel have I seen a horrible thing: the whoredom of Ephraim is there; Israel is defiled. ¹¹ Also, for thee, Judah, is a harvest appointed, when I shall turn again the captivity of my people.