Jeremiah 3
New English Translation
3 “If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,
he may not take her back again.[a]
Doing that would utterly defile the land.[b]
But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods.[c]
So what makes you think you can return to me?”[d]
says the Lord.
2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this.[e]
Where have you not been ravished?[f]
You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the wilderness.[g]
You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.[h]
3 That is why the rains have been withheld
and the spring rains have not come.
Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute.[i]
You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done.
4 Even now you say to me, ‘You are my father![j]
You have been my faithful companion ever since I was young.
5 You will not always be angry with me, will you?
You will not be mad at me forever, will you?’[k]
That is what you say,
but you continually do all the evil that you can.”[l]
6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done.[m] You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods.[n] 7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me.[o] But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did.[p] 8 She also saw[q] that, because of wayward Israel’s adulterous worship of other gods,[r] I sent her away and gave her divorce papers. But still her unfaithful sister Judah was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods.[s] 9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land[t] through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone.[u] 10 In spite of all this,[v] Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,”[w] says the Lord. 11 Then the Lord said to me, “Under the circumstances, wayward Israel could even be considered less guilty than unfaithful Judah.[x]
The Lord Calls on Israel and Judah to Repent
12 “Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north.[y] Tell them:
‘Come back to me, wayward Israel,’ says the Lord.
‘I will not continue to look on you with displeasure.[z]
For I am merciful,’ says the Lord.
‘I will not be angry with you forever.
13 However, you must confess that you have done wrong[aa]
and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You must confess[ab] that you have given yourself to[ac] foreign gods under every green tree
and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord.
14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master.[ad] If you do,[ae] I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion. 15 I will give you leaders[af] who will be faithful to me.[ag] They will lead you with knowledge and insight. 16 In those days, your population will greatly increase[ah] in the land. At that time,” says the Lord, “people will no longer talk about having the ark[ai] that contains the Lord’s covenant with us.[aj] They will not call it to mind, remember it, or miss it. No, that will not be done anymore![ak] 17 At that time the city of Jerusalem will be called the Lord’s throne. All nations will gather there in Jerusalem to honor the Lord’s name.[al] They will no longer follow the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts.[am] 18 At that time[an] the nation of Judah and the nation of Israel will be reunited.[ao] Together they will come back from a land in the north to the land that I gave to your ancestors as a permanent possession.
19 “I thought to myself,[ap]
‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son![aq]
What a joy it would be for me to give[ar] you a pleasant land,
the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’[as]
I thought you would call me ‘Father’[at]
and would never cease being loyal to me.[au]
20 But, you have been unfaithful to me, nation of Israel,[av]
like an unfaithful wife who has left her husband,”[aw]
says the Lord.
21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.
It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.
Indeed they have followed sinful ways;[ax]
they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God.[ay]
22 Come back to me, you wayward people.
I want to cure your waywardness.[az]
Say,[ba] ‘Here we are. We come to you
because you are the Lord our God.
23 We know our noisy worship of false gods
on the hills and mountains did not help us.[bb]
We know that the Lord our God
is the only one who can deliver Israel.[bc]
24 From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal,
has taken away[bd] all that our ancestors[be] worked for.
It has taken away our flocks and our herds
and even our sons and daughters.
25 Let us acknowledge[bf] our shame.
Let us bear the disgrace that we deserve.[bg]
For we have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our ancestors.
From earliest times to this very day
we have not obeyed the Lord our God.’
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 3:1 tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.sn For the legal background for the illustration that is used here, see Deut 24:1-4.
- Jeremiah 3:1 tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.
- Jeremiah 3:1 tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”
- Jeremiah 3:1 tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive, which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative: “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.
- Jeremiah 3:2 tn Heb “and see.”
- Jeremiah 3:2 sn The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which asserts the widespread nature of the nation’s idolatry. The prophets often compare Judah’s religious infidelity, idolatry, to adultery or prostitution. Jeremiah goes a step further in exposing their folly by portraying their willing acts of idolatry as being sexually violated.
- Jeremiah 3:2 tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”
- Jeremiah 3:2 tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.
- Jeremiah 3:3 tn Heb “you have the forehead of a prostitute.”
- Jeremiah 3:4 tn Heb “Have you not just now called out to me, ‘[You are] My father!’?” The rhetorical question expects a positive answer.
- Jeremiah 3:5 tn Heb “Will he keep angry forever? Will he maintain [it] to the end?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. The change to direct address in the English translation is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, common in Hebrew style (but not in English), from second person direct address in the preceding lines to third person indirect address in these two lines. See GKC 462 §144.p.
- Jeremiah 3:5 tn Heb “You do the evil and you are able.” This is an example of hendiadys, meaning, “You do all the evil that you are able to do.”
- Jeremiah 3:6 tn “Have you seen…” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.
- Jeremiah 3:6 tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.
- Jeremiah 3:7 tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (ʾamar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66 s.v. אמר 4) (cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18).sn Open theists suggest that passages such as this indicate God has limited foreknowledge; however, more traditional theologians view this passage as an extended metaphor in which God presents himself as a deserted husband, hoping against hope that his adulterous wife might return to him. The point of the metaphor is not to make an assertion about God’s foreknowledge, but to develop the theme of God’s heartbreak due to Israel’s unrepentance.
- Jeremiah 3:7 tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.
- Jeremiah 3:8 tc Heb “she [‘her sister, unfaithful Judah’ from the preceding verse] saw” with one Hebrew ms, some Greek mss, and the Syriac version. The MT reads, “I saw,” which may be a case of attraction to the verb at the beginning of the previous verse.
- Jeremiah 3:8 tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.
- Jeremiah 3:8 tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.
- Jeremiah 3:9 tc The translation reads the form as a causative (Hiphil, תַּהֲנֵף, tahanef) with some of the versions in place of the simple stative (Qal, תֶּחֱנַף, tekhenaf) in the MT.
- Jeremiah 3:9 tn Heb “because of the lightness of her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.”
- Jeremiah 3:10 tn Heb “And even in all this.”
- Jeremiah 3:10 tn Heb “has not turned back to me with all her heart but only in falsehood.”
- Jeremiah 3:11 tn Heb “Wayward Israel has proven herself to be more righteous than unfaithful Judah.”sn A comparison is drawn here between the greater culpability of Judah, who has had the advantage of seeing how God disciplined her sister nation for having sinned and yet ignored the warning and committed the same sin, and the culpability of Israel, who had no such advantage.
- Jeremiah 3:12 tn Heb “Go and proclaim these words to the north.” The translation assumes that the message is directed toward the exiles of northern Israel who have been scattered in the provinces of Assyria to the north.
- Jeremiah 3:12 tn Heb “I will not cause my face to fall on you.”
- Jeremiah 3:13 tn Heb “Only acknowledge your iniquity.”
- Jeremiah 3:13 tn The words “You must confess” are repeated to convey the connection. The Hebrew text has an introductory “that” in front of the second line and a coordinative “and” in front of the next two lines.
- Jeremiah 3:13 tc MT reads דְּרָכַיִךְ (derakhayikh, “your ways”), but the BHS editors suggest דּוֹדַיִךְ (dodayikh, “your breasts”) as an example of orthographic confusion. While the proposal makes sense, it remains a conjectural emendation since it is not supported by any actual manuscripts or ancient versions.tn Heb “scattered your ways with foreign [gods]” or “spread out your breasts to strangers.”
- Jeremiah 3:14 tn Or “I am your true husband.”sn There is a wordplay between the term “true master” and the name of the pagan god Baal. The pronoun “I” is emphatic, creating a contrast between the Lord as Israel’s true master/husband versus Baal as Israel’s illegitimate lover/master. See 2:23-25.
- Jeremiah 3:14 tn The words “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.
- Jeremiah 3:15 tn Heb “shepherds.”
- Jeremiah 3:15 tn Heb “after/according to my [own] heart.”
- Jeremiah 3:16 tn Heb “you will become numerous and fruitful.”
- Jeremiah 3:16 tn Or “chest.”
- Jeremiah 3:16 tn Heb “the ark of the covenant.” It is called this because it contained the tables of the law, which in abbreviated form constituted their covenant obligations to the Lord (cf. Exod 31:18; 32:15; 34:29).
- Jeremiah 3:16 tn Or “Nor will another one be made”; Heb “one will not do/make [it?] again.”
- Jeremiah 3:17 tn Heb “will gather to the name of the Lord.”
- Jeremiah 3:17 tn Heb “the stubbornness of their evil hearts.”
- Jeremiah 3:18 tn Heb “In those days.”
- Jeremiah 3:18 tn Heb “the house of Judah will walk together with the house of Israel.”
- Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “And I myself said.” See note on “I thought that she might come back to me” in 3:7.
- Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “How I would place you among the sons.” Israel appears to be addressed here contextually as the Lord’s wife (see the next verse). The pronouns of address in the first two lines are second feminine singular, as are the readings of the two verbs preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere readings) in the third and fourth lines. The verbs that are written in the text in the third and fourth lines (the Kethib readings) are second masculine plural, as is the verb describing Israel’s treachery in the next verse.sn The imagery here appears to be that of treating the wife as an equal heir with the sons and of giving her the best piece of property.
- Jeremiah 3:19 tn The words “What a joy it would be for me to” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied in the parallel structure.
- Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “the most beautiful heritage among the nations.”
- Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “my father.”
- Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “turn back from [following] after me.”
- Jeremiah 3:20 tn Heb “house of Israel.”
- Jeremiah 3:20 tn Heb “a wife unfaithful from her husband.”
- Jeremiah 3:21 tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods that is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops, where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2, and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance, see BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.
- Jeremiah 3:21 tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God.” But in view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.
- Jeremiah 3:22 tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafaʾ) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness, see Hos 14:4.
- Jeremiah 3:22 tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether the people’s words are a response to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether they are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance, to which 4:1-4 adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked, twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4, while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout, with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. The latter disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.
- Jeremiah 3:23 tn Heb “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.
- Jeremiah 3:23 tn Heb “Truly in the Lord our God is deliverance for Israel.”
- Jeremiah 3:24 tn Heb “From our youth the shameful thing has eaten up….” The shameful thing is specifically identified as Baal in Jer 11:13. Compare also the shift in certain names such as Ishbaal (“man of Baal”) to Ishbosheth (“man of shame”).
- Jeremiah 3:24 tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 25).
- Jeremiah 3:25 tn Heb “Let us lie down in….”
- Jeremiah 3:25 tn Heb “Let us be covered with disgrace.”
Jeremiah 3
King James Version
3 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord.
2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
3 Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.
4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?
5 Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.
6 The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord.
11 And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever.
13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord.
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
15 And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
16 And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.
17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.
18 In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.
19 But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me.
20 Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord.
21 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God.
22 Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God.
23 Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
24 For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.
Jeremiah 3
The Voice
3 Eternal One: If a husband divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he ever go back to her again? Such behavior would violate what is right, and the land itself would be tainted with sin. Now you, Judah, have acted like a whore and taken on many lovers. Why are you trying to return to Me now?
2 Look up to the hilltops. Take a good look.
Is there anywhere you have not committed perverse acts in the company of other gods?
You sat on the side of the road, offering yourself to lovers;
like a desert nomad you waited, patiently.
Even the land itself is tainted by your prostitution and wickedness.
From the beginning, the covenant between God and His people is clear. They are to worship and trust Him alone. They are to remain true to His teachings. So when God sees His people worshiping idols made of stone and wood, when He sees them participating in demeaning sexual practices with prostitutes as part of local fertility rites, it is too much. The people of Judah have been unfaithful in nearly every way imaginable. They have witnessed what happened to the adulterous Northern Kingdom of Israel. But somehow, these stubborn people think they are special, even immune to such disaster. They think if they say the right prayers in the right ways to the right God from time to time, then all the blatant violations of God’s covenant will be ignored. The prophet Jeremiah sees it all differently.
God will send out a message to the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, which He still calls Israel. For decades, those people have been scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire to the north, while their land has been under enemy occupation. But despite the tribes’ faithlessness, these many years later, the God of mercy offers to restore them. In the midst of divine judgment, God utters words of hope; but this hope, this restoration, is only found in true repentance.
3 That is why I have held back the rain,
why the spring rains have not come.
But you still look and act the part of a prostitute—
unfazed, unashamed.
4 But wait, did you just now call out to Me, saying,
“My Father, You have been my friend, my confidant since I was young”?
5 You ask, “Surely He won’t be angry forever, will He?
Surely He won’t hold this against us to the end, right?”
This is how you talk—as if all I want are your words;
meanwhile you continue in your selfish and evil ways.
6 Then the Eternal who rules over all of history reminded me of a lesson my people, Judah, should have learned from Israel a century ago. He spoke these words to Judah early in my career, during the days of Josiah the king.
Eternal One: Have you not learned anything from Israel’s unfaithful ways? How she turned away from Me, went up every high hill and under every green tree to worship another. She acted like a prostitute and broke our covenant there. 7 I thought, “After she’s done all this, she’ll return home to Me,” but it never happened. She didn’t come back. And her deceitful sister, Judah, saw all of this and learned nothing. 8 She saw that I sent unfaithful Israel away with a decree of divorce for these acts of adultery. But it didn’t matter to her deceitful sister, Judah. She wasn’t afraid or moved by any of this. She went her own way and played the prostitute as well. 9 In fact, because her own infidelity bothered her so little, she defiled the land by committing adultery, worshiping stones and trees instead of Me. 10 And while this was a lesson to be learned by deceitful Judah, it was an opportunity lost—for she never learned it; she never completely returned to Me. She only pretended to be Mine, as if empty words would satisfy Me.
11 (to Jeremiah) Despite her faithlessness, Israel has proven to be more righteous than her deceitful sister, Judah. 12 Now go and cry out these words of hope to those people in the north:
“Return to Me, faithless Israel.
I will look on you with mercy, not anger.
I will not hold this grudge against you forever.
13 Just admit what you did—your sin against Me.
How you rebelled against the Eternal your God.
How you gave yourself away to these foreign gods in the open, under the trees!
How you disobeyed My voice.
14 Come back home, My restless, faithless ones,
for I am your master, your husband (not that other god),
And I will take you in—one from this city, two from that clan;
I will bring you home to Zion.
15 “Then I will give you shepherds who trust and know Me, wise teachers who will impart knowledge and understanding to you. 16 In those days, after your people have grown and increased in the land, they will no longer talk about the covenant chest of the Eternal. They won’t think about it, remember it, or even miss it. There will be no need for it to be made again. 17 In this coming age, Jerusalem will be known as the throne of the Eternal. All the nations of the world will be drawn there to her, to honor the name of the Eternal. The days of people insisting on their own stubborn ways dictated by their own evil hearts will be gone. 18 In that day, the split between My people will be mended. Judah and Israel will walk together again. From a land to the north, they will come to this land I gave only to your ancestors.
19 “I thought to Myself how much I wanted to welcome you home as children
and bless you with a good land and a future to be envied by all the world.
I hoped for the day when you would call Me ‘My Father,’
and no longer pull away from Me and My ways.
20 But just as an unfaithful wife betrays her husband,
so have you betrayed Me, O house of Israel.”
Jeremiah tells the people what could happen, if only they will repent. The prophet hopes for dialogue between Israel and the God who has never stopped loving her.
21 A sound now echoes from the deserted hills
where Israel betrayed her God.
It is the sound of bitter tears mixed with the prayers
of the lost and rebellious people of Israel
who have forgotten the Eternal, their True God.
22 Eternal One: Come back to Me, My faithless ones,
and I will heal your faithlessness.
Israel: Look! We come to You now,
because You are the Eternal our God.
23 The idols we worshiped on the hills,
the rituals we performed on the mountains were based on a lie.
You, the Eternal, our one True God,
are the only hope of Israel’s rescue.
24 Everything our parents worked for—their livestock and even their families—has been devoured by the worship of the shameful god. 25 Let us fall on our faces in shame, covered in our humiliation. Ours is a legacy of rebellion, for we and those before us have sinned against the Eternal our God. From the time we were young to this very day, we have refused to obey His voice.
Jeremiah 3
English Standard Version
3 (A)“If[a] a man divorces his wife
and she goes from him
and becomes another man's wife,
will he return to her?
(B)Would not that land be greatly polluted?
(C)You have played the whore with many lovers;
and would you return to me?
declares the Lord.
2 Lift up your eyes to (D)the bare heights, and see!
Where have you not been ravished?
(E)By the waysides you have sat awaiting lovers
like an Arab in the wilderness.
(F)You have polluted the land
with your vile whoredom.
3 (G)Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and the spring rain has not come;
yet you have (H)the forehead of a whore;
you refuse to be ashamed.
4 Have you not just now (I)called to me,
‘My father, you are the friend of my youth—
5 (J)will he be angry forever,
will he be indignant to the end?’
Behold, you have spoken,
but you have done all the evil that you could.”
Faithless Israel Called to Repentance
6 The Lord said to me in the days of (K)King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, (L)how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there (M)played the whore? 7 And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous (N)sister Judah saw it. 8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, (O)I had sent her away with (P)a decree of divorce. (Q)Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went (R)and played the whore. 9 Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with (S)stone and tree. 10 Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me (T)with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”
11 And the Lord said to me, (U)“Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. 12 Go, and proclaim these words toward (V)the north, and say,
(W)“‘Return, faithless Israel,
declares the Lord.
I will not look on you in anger,
for (X)I am merciful,
declares the Lord;
(Y)I will not be angry forever.
13 (Z)Only acknowledge your guilt,
that you rebelled against the Lord your God
and scattered your favors among foreigners under (AA)every green tree,
and that you have not obeyed my voice,
declares the Lord.
14 (AB)Return, O faithless children,
declares the Lord;
(AC)for I am your master;
I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.
15 “‘And (AD)I will give you shepherds after my own heart, (AE)who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. 16 And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again. 17 At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, (AF)and all nations shall gather to it, (AG)to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. 18 (AH)In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land (AI)of the north to (AJ)the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.
19 “‘I said,
How I would set you among my sons,
and give you a pleasant land,
a heritage most beautiful of all nations.
And I thought you would (AK)call me, My Father,
and would not turn from following me.
20 (AL)Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband,
so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel,
declares the Lord.’”
21 A voice on the (AM)bare heights is heard,
(AN)the weeping and pleading of Israel's sons
because they have perverted their way;
they have forgotten the Lord their God.
22 (AO)“Return, O faithless sons;
(AP)I will heal your faithlessness.”
“Behold, we come to you,
for you are the Lord our God.
23 Truly (AQ)the hills are a delusion,
the orgies[b] on the mountains.
(AR)Truly in the Lord our God
is the salvation of Israel.
24 “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25 (AS)Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For (AT)we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 3:1 Septuagint, Syriac; Hebrew Saying, “If
- Jeremiah 3:23 Hebrew commotion
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The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
