\u201cPlead with your mother, plead\u201d\u201d
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband\u201d\u201d
that she put away her harlotry from her face,
and her adultery from between her breasts;
lest I strip her naked
and make her as in the day she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and set her like a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.
Upon her children also I will have no pity,
because they are children of harlotry.
For their mother has played the harlot;
she that conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, \u201d\u02dcI will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.\u2019
Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns;
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
She shall pursue her lovers,
but not overtake them;
and she shall seek them,
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, \u201d\u02dcI will go
and return to my first husband,
for it was better with me then than now.\u2019
And she did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold which they used for Ba\u201d\u00b2al.
Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time,
and my wine in its season;
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
Now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
And I will put an end to all her mirth,
her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths,
and all her appointed feasts.
And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
\u201d\u02dcThese are my hire,
which my lovers have given me.\u2019
I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
And I will punish her for the feast days of the Ba\u201d\u00b2als
when she burned incense to them
and decked herself with her ring and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTherefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
–Hosea 2:2-14<\/p>
And then the Thames turned to blood! @metoffice<\/a> #loveukWeather<\/a> #Thames<\/a> #Twickenham<\/a> #sunrise<\/a> @CloudAppSoc<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/eGNasQsItg<\/a><\/p>— Ruth Wadey (@ruths_gallery) September 29, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>