The prophecy of Hosea centers around God's unending love towards a sinful Israel. In this text, God's agony is expressed over His betrayal by Israel. Stephen Cook asserts that the prophetic efforts of this book can be summed up in this passage "I have been the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior" (). Hosea's job was to speak these words during a time when they had been essentially forgotten.