Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.
    Your sins have been your downfall!

Hosea 14:1

With these words, Hosea’s final chapter begins. It is a chapter of repentance and redemption, filled with hope and a simple faith. Israel had fallen into idolatry, literally the worship of false gods made by their own hands, they had fallen into violence, injustice, greed, envy and debauchery of every sort. As a consequence of all this, they had refused to repent and return to their God, they had persisted in their foolishness and had suffered God’s justice. Now, at the end, there is one more call for Israel to cease its rebellion and return to God.

The situation in which Israel finds itself here is a very human situation in which many of us, probably most of us, have been in at one time or another. There is anger, resentment, hurt and yes, a fair…