The prophet Hosea lived through the tumultuous final decades of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Assyrian invasion culminated in the destruction of Samaria, the end of the Northern Kingdom, and the exile of many of its people. Hosea called the people to faith in God through warnings of judgment and promises of hope. He exposed the people's infidelity as they turned to other nations, to their own counsels or to other gods for their life and prosperity. Such turning to others for what God alone could give them was, using Hosea's most famous metaphor, whoring. As God's people, they needed to reckon with "their" God, who had showered them with care and grace.