| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Berean Study Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4Have you not just called to Me, ‘My Father, You are my friend from youth. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5Will He be angry forever? Will He be indignant to the end?’ This you have spoken, but you keep doing all the evil you can.” |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than unfaithful Judah. |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22“Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness.” “Here we are. We come to You, for You are the LORD our God. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23Surely deception comes from the hills, and commotion from the mountains. Surely the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24From our youth, that shameful god has consumed what our fathers have worked for—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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.” |
|
