Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, Neither am I her husband; And let her put away her prostitution from her face, And her adulteries from between her breasts;
The summons addressed to the children to contend with their mother in this verse, "presupposes that, although the nation regarded as a whole was sunken in idolatry, the individual members were not all slaves to it."[12] The terrible words of this verse should not be regarded merely as the venomous outburst of an outraged prophet, but as the true Word of God. As Hailey declared, "That it is Jehovah speaking, and not Hosea is clear from the `I' of this verse, and from `Thus saith Jehovah' in  Hosea 2:13."[13]