The Example of Samaria

⁶ In the time of King Josiah the Lord told me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she committed fornication there. ⁷ I thought,^[a] ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to me.’ But she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw this. ⁸ I saw that even though I had sent unfaithful Israel away for all her adulteries and had given her a^[b] divorce decree, her treacherous sister Judah didn’t fear, and she, too, committed adultery. ⁹ She took her fornication so lightly that she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.^{[c] 10} Yet in all this her treacherous sister Judah didn’t return to me with her whole heart, but rather deceptively,” declares the Lord.