Hosea 2:3

"Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst."

This passage is a threat to reduce Israel to the status they had when she was born. The nation was born (in the large sense) as a penniless mass of slaves serving Pharaoh, having no homeland, nor nationhood, and no status of any kind whatever. God had elevated her to the rulership of the entire Middle East and bestowed upon her every favor and preference; but Israel had still rejected and spurned the very God who had redeemed her from wretched slavery and poverty. Now God proposes that her punishment shall include a return to the very condition out of which he had brought them. This of course happened literally, first for the ten northern tribes when they became slaves of Assyria, and more completely when the two southern tribes (Benjamin and Judah) were carried away to Babylon in slavery.

"This speech is modeled on the established legal procedure for the prosecution of adulterous wives. Accusation is made, and punishment is called for ... the speech contains a formal declaration that the marriage is at an end.[15]

However, "The domestic image is disappearing, and it is the nation coming into view here."[16] The language here strongly suggests Ezekiel 16:4ff, in which the nation was represented as a naked child covered with filth, which the Lord cleansed, clothed, and adorned. Ezekiel 16:47 flatly declares that Israel "was more corrupt" than Sodom and Gomorrah! In the light of this, how could it be supposed that God still cherishes fleshly Israel as "his chosen people?"

This verse is actually a description of what it means to be divorced by the Lord. "It meant utter dispossession, with nothing left but the naked body. Israel will be nothing but a wilderness, a parched land."[17] "It means that Israel would become a prey to their enemies when left naked and desolate by her God."[18]