Hosea 3 opens with one of the most beautiful verses in Scripture regarding God’s faithfulness toward the unfaithful. The LORD tells His prophet, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods.” The LORD still loves Israel, His spiritually unfaithful wife. Though they have foolishly given themselves to false religion, He will graciously take them back. To illustrate this truth, Hosea is to retrieve his adulterous wife (3:1). Since she left her husband, Gomer has sunk lower and lower in the social scale of the day. Now she has become a slave and will be sold to the highest bidder. Hosea barters for his wife, redeeming her for fifteen shekels of silver and some barley. He brings her home, stating that she will not belong to another man, and he will remain separate from her for a period of a time. So there is a renewal of the marriage, but a delay in its consummation. In the same way, the LORD will be separate from the people of Israel for some time. As a result of His judgment, not only will they have no political leaders, they will also be unable to connect with God. Just as Gomer must cease from all sexual activity, both illegitimate and legitimate, Israel must abstain from all religious activity, for even their worship of God had become corrupt (3:2-4). Yet Hosea looks forward to a glorious future for Israel when they will “return and seek the LORD their God.” God will honor His covenant with King David, sending a Redeemer to lead His people “in the latter days” (3:5). In Hosea 4, the LORD addresses the wayward nation. “There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land.” Instead, He sees only a flagrant disregard for all His moral law. The religious leaders have rejected God’s Word, so His people are “destroyed for lack of knowledge” (4:1-6). The sinful priests actually delighted in the sins of the people. “For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray, and they have left their God to play the whore” (4:7-14). The evil is so widespread that the LORD instructs His people to avoid Gilgal and Bethel, two of their most important worship sites. In His view, Bethel had become “Beth-aven”—a house of wickedness (4:15-19). Israel’s worship gatherings did more harm than good. As D.A. Carson explains, “Go to church with this lot, and all you are doing is participating in disgusting idolatry and self-seeking, with no attention devoted to learning God’s Word. Better to stay home; this sort of ‘church’ will merely corrupt you.” For further meditation: