3
1 He says, “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, will he return to her again?
Would not that land be thoroughly defiled?
You have prostituted yourself with many lovers, and would you return to me?”
declares the LORD.
2 “Lift your eyes to the bare heights and look.
Where have men not slept with you?
You sat by the roads waiting for them, like an Arab in the wilderness.
You have defiled the land with your prostitution and your wickedness.
3 So the showers were withheld, and the spring rain did not come.
Yet you had the forehead of a prostitute;
you refused to be ashamed.
4 Have you not just now called to me, ‘My Father, you are the companion of my youth’?
5 ‘Will he hold a grudge forever?
Will he keep his anger to the end?’ Look, this is what you have said, yet you have done all the evil you could.”
6 In the days of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done?
She went up on every high mountain and under every leafy tree and prostituted herself there.
7 I said, ‘After she has done all this, she will return to me.’ But she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 I saw that, though I had sent faithless Israel away and given her a certificate of divorce because of all her adulteries, her treacherous sister Judah did not fear.
She too went and prostituted herself.
9 Because she took her prostitution lightly, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.
10 Yet despite all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD.
11 Then the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north: Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD.
I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the LORD.
I will not hold a grudge forever.
13 Only acknowledge your guilt: you have rebelled against the LORD your God, scattered your favors among strangers under every leafy tree, and have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD.
14 Return, faithless children, declares the LORD, for I am your husband.
I will take you, one from a city and two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.
15 I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16 When you multiply and become fruitful in the land in those days, declares the LORD, they will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It will not come to mind;
they will not remember it or miss it, nor will another be made.
17 At that time they will call Jerusalem the Throne of the LORD, and all the nations will gather to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem.
They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.
18 In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and together they will come from the land of the north to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance.
19 I said, ‘How I would place you among my children and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance among the hosts of nations!’ I said you would call me ‘My Father’ and would not turn away from following me.
20 But as a wife is treacherous to her companion, so you have been treacherous to me, house of Israel,” declares the LORD.
21 A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel, because they have twisted their way and forgotten the LORD their God.
22 “Return, faithless children;
I will heal your faithlessness.”
“Here we are;
we come to you, for you are the LORD our God.
23 Surely the hills are a deception, the tumult on the mountains!
Surely in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.
24 From our youth the shameful thing has devoured the fruit of our ancestors’ labor—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters.
25 Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us, for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth to this day.
We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”