Hosea

Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom in its last decades before the Assyrian conquest. God commands him to marry Gomer, an unfaithful wife, and to keep loving her — a living parable of God's anguished, faithful love for an Israel that has 'played the harlot' by chasing other gods.

Through this painful marriage the book voices both searing judgement and astonishing tenderness: 'How can I give you up, O Ephraim?' (11:8). Hosea's picture of covenant as marriage, of sin as adultery and of grace that will not let go runs deep into the rest of Scripture's understanding of God's love.