2. A call to know the Lord (6:1-3)

Instead of turning to what are nogods, Israel should turn to the Lord (6:1-3). It is not Israel’s relation to Assyria that is responsible for her difficulties, it is her relation to God. Hosea daringly says that if Israel will return to her true husband, she may yet be delivered and restored (“two days . . . third day” is a Semitic idiom for the future). Here, as elsewhere, he calls on the people to look behind the immediate events of history to the One who controls history.