You can scrub yourself with all the soap you want, but you’ll never be able to wash away the stain of what you’ve done before Me. So says the Eternal Lord.

O Judah, where will your pagan gods be then? You know, the ones you made yourself? Let them stand up on their own. See if they’re able to save you from your troubles. You have as many gods as villages, Judah. Now let them take care of you.

Still you dare to say, “I am innocent; surely God could not be angry with me anymore.” Yet watch as I condemn you because you perjure yourself saying, “I have not sinned.”

When you begin to ask yourself, “Why is all this happening to me?” know this: it is because of the weight of your sins. This is why your enemies will tear off your skirts and violate your bodies.

As for your faithlessness, your adulteries and your lustful ways, as for the degrading way you prostitute yourself to other gods out in the open, I see it all. For all this, your fate is sealed. O Jerusalem—how bad it will be for you! How long before you are clean again?

But you, Israel, I will bring back to your own pasture. Once again you will graze in the lush fields of Carmel and Bashan; your hunger will be no more; you will fill yourself on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.