Hosea 2:23

‘Then I will sow her for Myself in the earth, And I will have mercy on [her who had] not obtained mercy; Then I will say to [those who were] not My people, 'You [are] My people!' And they shall say, ['You are] my God!'’ (Hosea 2:23)

So chapter 2 is God’s analogy of Israel with a prostitute, or unfaithful wife, and the yearning for them to return, and the promise of their return in the last days (vv. 18). This story will be played out in Hosea’s own life as first seen in the first chapter. This verse (the last verse of the chapter) hit me with the phrase ‘And I will have mercy on [her who had] not obtained mercy’. What a stark picture of our own lives! Mercy has been given to us, lavished upon us, and we have not obtained it. There is nothing that we have done that could have led God to give us this mercy, in fact, we were much like the harlot of this chapter – running away from God and offering ourselves to anything that passed us by. And yet God has called us back, and washed us from our idolatry, and loved us and given us immeasurable mercy. We need to savour that.