⁷ And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous ^(A)sister Judah saw it.

⁴⁶ And ^(A)your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and ^(B)your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters.

A Plea to Return to the Lord

Israel and Judah Are Unrepentant

^2 (A)“Son of man, there were ^(B)two women, the daughters of one mother. ^3 (C)They played the whore in Egypt; ^(D)they played the whore ^(E)in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms^[a] handled. ⁴ Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. ^(F)They became mine, and they ^(G)bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is ^(H)Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

⁸ She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, ^(A)I had sent her away with ^(B)a decree of divorce. ^(C)Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went ^(D)and played the whore. ⁹ Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with ^(E)stone and tree. ¹⁰ Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me ^(F)with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”

¹¹ And the Lord said to me, ^(G)“Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

^6 (A)So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his princes, as the king had commanded, saying, “O people of Israel, ^(B)return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of ^(C)the kings of Assyria. ^7 (D)Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were faithless to the Lord God of their fathers, so that he made them a desolation, as you see. ^8 (E)Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve the Lord your God, ^(F)that his fierce anger may turn away from you. ⁹ For ^(G)if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children ^(H)will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For ^(I)the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, ^(J)if you return to him.”

^10 (K)So the couriers went from city to city through the country of ^(L)Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but ^(M)they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. ¹¹ However, ^(N)some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. ¹² The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded ^(O)by the word of the Lord.

¹³ Yet the Lord ^(A)warned Israel and Judah ^(B)by every prophet ^(C)and every seer, saying, ^(D)“Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

¹⁴ But they would not listen, ^(E)but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.