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Friday, 3/4/16
 

Our first reading is from Hosea, a priest of that northern kingdom that came about when Solomon died in 931 b.c. His son, Rehoboam, immediately on succeeding Solomon, slapped such heavy taxes on the people, that ten of the tribes broke away. 

They then, for two hundred years led a separate life as the Kingdom of Israel; coming to an end when the people were taken away by Assyria in 721.
 

Hosea’s wife, Gomer, turned aside to other men; and God made Hosea’s pleading with Gomer to stand for his pleading with Israel. 

With Hosea God says, “I will allure her, leading her into the desert, speaking to her heart.” 

As with Jeremiah he said, “I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a bride; following me in the desert, in that land unsown.” 

God, is now making Hosea’s pleading with his wife stand for his pleading with us. Pleading with us, he says, “Straight are the paths of the Lord. In them the just walk, but sinners stumble and fall.”