Jeremias 3

Can a divorced wife come back?

¹This is the message: If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and marries another man, will he go back to her again? \q Would that land not be thoroughly defiled? \q Yet you have prostituted yourself with many lovers, \q and would you now come back to me? declares the LORD.^{abc 2}Look up at the bare hilltops and see: \q is there any place where you have not been lain with? \q You sat by the roadsides waiting for lovers, like a nomad in the desert, \q and you have defiled the land with your prostitution and your wickedness.^{d 3}So the showers have been held back, \q and the spring rain has not come. \q Yet your face is as brazen as a prostitute’s; \q you will not let yourself feel shame. ⁴Have you not just now been calling to me, “My father, \q you have been my close friend since I was young! ⁵Will he stay angry forever? \q Will he hold on to it to the end?” \q That is how you talk, but you do every evil thing you can.

Faithless Israel and treacherous Judah

⁶The LORD spoke to me during the reign of King Josiah: “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up onto every high hill and under every green tree, and there she prostituted herself.^{e 7}I thought, ‘After she has done all this, she will come back to me.’ But she did not come back, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸I saw that, because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid. She too went and prostituted herself.^{fg 9}Because her prostitution meant so little to her, she defiled the land, committing adultery with stone and wood. ¹⁰Even after all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not come back to me wholeheartedly; it was only a pretense, declares the LORD.”

Return, faithless people

¹¹The LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than treacherous Judah. ¹²Go and proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, faithless Israel, declares the LORD. I will not look on you in anger, for I am loyal in love, declares the LORD. I will not stay angry forever.^{h 13}Only admit your guilt: you have rebelled against the LORD your God, you have run here and there to foreign gods under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD. ¹⁴Return, faithless children, declares the LORD, for I am your husband. I will take you, one from a town and two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.^{i 15}I will give you shepherds who are after my own heart, and they will shepherd you with knowledge and insight. ¹⁶In those days, when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, declares the LORD, people will no longer speak of “the ark of the covenant of the LORD.” It will not come to mind; they will not remember it or miss it, and another will not be made.^{j 17}At that time Jerusalem will be named the LORD’s throne, and all the nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the LORD’s name. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.

¹⁸In those days the people of Judah will join the people of Israel, and together they will come from the land of the north to the land I gave your ancestors as their inheritance.’” ¹⁹I myself thought, “How I would love to treat you as one of my sons \q and give you a pleasant land, \q the most beautiful inheritance among the nations!” \q I thought you would call me “My father” \q and would never turn away from following me.^{k 20}But as an unfaithful wife leaves her husband, \q so you have been unfaithful to me, house of Israel, declares the LORD. ²¹A cry is heard on the bare hilltops, \q the Israelites weeping and pleading, \q because they have twisted their path \q and forgotten the LORD their God. ²²Return, faithless children, \q and I will heal your faithlessness. \q “We are here; we have come to you, \q because you are the LORD our God. ²³Surely the hills are a delusion, and the uproar on the mountains; \q surely in the LORD our God \q is the salvation of Israel.^{l 24}From our youth the shameful god has devoured all that our ancestors worked for: \q their flocks and their herds, \q their sons and their daughters.^{m 25}Let us lie down in our shame and let our disgrace cover us. \q For both we and our ancestors have sinned against the LORD our God, \q from our youth until this very day, \q and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”