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God Contemplates Divorcing Israel

“When a man divorces his wife, she leaves him and
becomes another man’s wife,
will the first husband[a] return to her again?
        The land would be deeply polluted, would it not?
Since you have committed fornication with many lovers,
    would you now return to me?”
        declares the Lord.

“Look up to the barren heights and see.
    Is there any place[b] where you have not been ravished?
You have sat beside the road, waiting[c] for them[d]
    like a nomad in the desert.
And you have polluted the land
    with your fornication and your wickedness.
This is why the rain has been withheld
    and there are no spring showers.
Yet you have a harlot’s look[e]
    and you refuse to be ashamed.
Have you not just called out to me,
    ‘My father, you are the friend of my youth—
will he hold on to his anger forever,
    will he persist in his wrath to the end?’
Look, you have spoken and done evil things,
    and you have succeeded in it.”[f]

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 3:1 Lit. he
  2. Jeremiah 3:2 The Heb. lacks Is there anyplace
  3. Jeremiah 3:2 The Heb. lacks waiting
  4. Jeremiah 3:2 I.e. as if waiting for a prostitute
  5. Jeremiah 3:3 Lit. forehead
  6. Jeremiah 3:5 The Heb. lacks in it