Jeremiah 3:9-4:4
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.(A) 10 Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart but only in pretense, says the Lord.(B)
11 Then the Lord said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah.(C) 12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:
Return, faithless Israel,
says the Lord.
I will not look on you in anger,
for I am merciful,
says the Lord;
I will not be angry forever.(D)
13 Only acknowledge your guilt,
that you have rebelled against the Lord your God
and scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree
and have not obeyed my voice,
says the Lord.(E)
14 Return, O faithless children,
says the Lord,
for I am your husband;
I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.(F)
15 I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.(G) 16 And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, they shall no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed, nor shall another one be made.(H) 17 At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will.(I) 18 In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.(J)
19 I thought
how I would set you among my children
and give you a pleasant land,
the most beautiful heritage of all the nations.
And I thought you would call to me, “My Father,”
and would not turn from following me.(K)
20 Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband,
so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel,
says the Lord.(L)
21 A voice on the bare heights[a] is heard,
the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children,
because they have perverted their way;
they have forgotten the Lord their God:(M)
22 Return, O faithless children,
I will heal your faithlessness.
“Here we come to you,
for you are the Lord our God.(N)
23 Truly the hills are[b] a delusion,
a tumult on the mountains.
Truly in the Lord our God
is the salvation of Israel.(O)
24 “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25 Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”(P)
4 If you return, O Israel,
says the Lord,
if you return to me,
if you remove your abominations from my presence
and do not waver,(Q)
2 and if you swear, “As the Lord lives!”
in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,
then nations shall be blessed[c] by you,[d]
and by you[e] they shall boast.(R)
3 For thus says the Lord to the people of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem:
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.