“But now I will take back the ripened grain and new wine I generously provided each harvest season. I will take away the wool and linen clothing I gave her to cover her nakedness.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
- KJV Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
- BSB Therefore I will take back My grain in its time and My new wine in its season; I will take away My wool and linen, which were given to cover her nakedness.
- NKJV “Therefore I will return and take away My grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And will take back My wool and My linen, Given to cover her nakedness.
- NASB “Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time And My new wine in its season. I will also take away My wool and My flax That I gave to cover her nakedness.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Because she misused His gifts, God will take back the grain, wine, wool, and flax He had provided. He removes the blessings she ungratefully squandered.
Overview
Since Israel credited the idols and dishonored God with His own provisions, He withdraws them to reveal their true source. Stripping away wool and flax leaves her exposed, an image of shame and vulnerability. The action is corrective: by removing the gifts, God aims to teach His people who actually sustains them and to break their attachment to false providers.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Mal 3:18Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.
- Mal 1:4Whereas Edom says, “We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places”; Yahweh of Armies says, “They shall build, but I will throw down; and men will call them ‘The Wicked Land,’ even the people against whom Yahweh shows wrath forever.”
- Isa 17:10–11For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.
- Hag 1:6–11You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”
- Hos 2:3Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- Ezek 23:26They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your beautiful jewels.
- Zeph 1:13Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.
- Hos 8:7For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
- Ezek 16:39I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places; and they will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.
- Dan 11:13The king of the north shall return, and shall send out a multitude greater than the former; and he shall come on at the end of the times, even of years, with a great army and with much substance.
- Hag 2:16–17Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.
- Joel 2:14Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering to Yahweh, your God.
- Isa 3:18–26In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, the headbands, the crescent necklaces,
- Ezek 16:27See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your portion, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd way.
- Hos 9:2The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her.
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Christ at the center
God's relentless love for an unfaithful bride dramatizes the gospel: 'Out of Egypt I called my son' is fulfilled in Jesus, who redeems an adulterous people at his own cost.
How Hosea 2:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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