The Treachery of Us and the Tenacity of God

I started reading in Hosea yesterday. What a commentary on the fickleness and vileness of human hearts:

God speaks:

“I will strip her naked and expose her as on the day when she was born. I will also make her like a wilderness, make her like desert land and slay her with thirst. Also, I will have no compassion on her children, because they are children of harlotry. For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’…

“For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil and lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal…

“I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her out of My hand…. I will destroy her vines and fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages which my lovers have given me.’…I will punish her for the days of the Baals when she used to offer sacrifices to them and adorn herself with her earrings and jewelry and follow her lovers so that she forgot Me” (Hosea 2:3-13).

The very gifts of God we use against Him and refuse to see Him as the giver of every good thing (see James 1:17).

He did judge and chasten His people Israel. But He did not put her away forever. Hosea tells the story of the tenacity of God, His undeterred pursuit of His unfaithful bride.

“‘Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her…. It will come about in that day,’ declares the LORD, ‘that you will call Me Ishi [my husband] and will no longer call Me Baali [my owner]. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, so that they will be mentioned by their names no more….

“‘I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, and I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the LORD’” (Hosea 2:14-20).