Jeremiah 3:1-9 ▼

1 A saying: If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, her first husband shouldn't go back to her again. The land would become thoroughly polluted. |You have acted like a prostitute who has many lovers. And now you want to come back to me!| declares the LORD.

2 |Look at the bare hills, and see. You have had sex with men in every place. You sat by the roadside waiting for them like a nomad in the desert. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

3 So the rain has been withheld, and there have been no spring showers. Yet, you have the shameless look of a prostitute, and you refuse to blush.

4 But now you are calling to me. You say, 'Father! You have been my companion ever since I was young.

5 He won't hold a grudge forever. He won't always be angry.' You have said and done all the evil things that you could.|

6 When Josiah was king, the LORD asked me, |Did you see what unfaithful Israel did? She went up every high mountain and under every large tree, and she acted like a prostitute there.

7 I thought that after she had done all this that she would come back to me. But she didn't come back, and her treacherous sister Judah saw her.

8 Judah saw that I sent unfaithful Israel away because of her adultery and that I gave Israel her divorce papers. But treacherous Judah, her sister, wasn't afraid. She also acted like a prostitute.

9 Because she wasn't concerned about acting like a prostitute, she polluted the land and committed adultery with standing stones and wood pillars.