1“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.
2“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
6Now in the days of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree to prostitute herself there.
8She saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away. Yet that unfaithful sister Judah had no fear and prostituted herself as well.
12Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will not be angry forever.
13Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’ ” declares the LORD.
14“Return, O faithless children,” declares the LORD, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion.
16“In those days, when you multiply and increase in the land,” declares the LORD, “they will no longer discuss the ark of the covenant of the LORD. It will never come to mind, and no one will remember it or miss it, nor will another one be made.
17At that time Jerusalem will be called The Throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be gathered in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.
18In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance.
19Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.
21A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God.
25Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the LORD our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”
