Jeremiah 3:1-13 ▼

1 |When a man divorces his wife, she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, will the first husband return to her again? The land would be deeply polluted, would it not? Since you have committed fornication with many lovers, would you now return to me?| declares the LORD.

2 |Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? You have sat beside the road, waiting for them like a nomad in the desert. And you have polluted the land with your fornication and your wickedness.

3 This is why the rain has been withheld and there are no spring showers. Yet you have a harlot's look and you refuse to be ashamed.

4 Have you not just called out to me, 'My father, you are the friend of my youth—

5 will he hold on to his anger forever, will he persist in his wrath to the end?' Look, you have spoken and done evil things, and you have succeeded in it.|

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, '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 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.

10 Yet in all this her treacherous sister Judah didn't return to me with her whole heart, but rather deceptively,| declares the LORD.

11 Then the LORD told me, |Unfaithful Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

12 Go, proclaim these words to the north, and say, 'Return, unfaithful Israel,' declares the LORD. 'I won't look on you in anger, for I am gracious,' declares the LORD. 'I won't remain angry forever.

13 Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree. But you haven't obeyed me,' declares the LORD.