Have you ever had to pull weeds? That’s a hard job. How about take out the stinky trash? That’s a hard (or at least stinky) job too. The prophets—like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel—all had hard jobs. The work of a prophet was hard (and sometimes stinky!) work because they often preached an unpopular message to people who didn’t want to hear. Some of the prophets had to warn God’s people that God was going to judge them. Others had to tell people to turn away from sin and love God. Still others had to tell bad kings and queens to stop behaving badly. But one prophet might have had the hardest assignment of all. His name was Hosea.

The first message Hosea heard from God was this: “Go and find a bad woman to marry. I don’t want you to marry someone who is good and will be faithful to you, but someone who is not good and will continue to be unfaithful.” Normally, this would be very bad advice. But in Hosea’s case it was from a good God who wanted to make an important point. He wanted the prophet’s bad marriage to symbolize how bad God’s people had been to God.