Hear the word of Yahweh, you children of Israel; For Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: "Indeed there is no truth, Nor goodness, Nor knowledge of God in the land.
Hosea moved at once to make clear what had been signified already in his own tragic marriage, which had been providentially designed to portray that which was happening upon a far greater scale in the life of the entire nation.  The terrible message had already been spelled out by what had happened in the case of Gomer.  Her infidelity resulted in her leaving her husband; and when she had been reduced to a state of slavery as a result of her sins, Hosea bought her back, not for the purpose of remarrying her, but with the purpose of reducing her to the status of a servant retained without conjugal rights of any kind, and in certain areas required to do his will without regard to her own inclinations.  God inspired Hosea to recount the sordid details of his marriage as a warning to Israel, and as a symbol of what would happen to the nation; but in this chapter and to the end of Hosea, God dropped any further use of allegory and spelled it out dramatically in the plainest and most literal language possible.