Jeremiah 3:1-25
3 There is a saying: “If a man* should send away his wife* and she should actually go away from him and become another man’s, should he return to her anymore?”+
Has that land* not positively been polluted?+
“And you* yourself have committed prostitution with many companions;+ and should there be a returning to me?”+ is the utterance of Jehovah.
2 “Raise your eyes to the beaten paths and see.+ Where is it that you have not been raped?*+ Alongside the ways you have sat for them, like an Arabian in the wilderness;+ and you keep polluting the land with your acts of prostitution and with your badness.+
3 So copious showers are withheld,+ and not even a spring rain has occurred.+ And the forehead of a wife committing prostitution is what has become yours. You have refused to feel humiliated.+
4 Have you from now on called out to me, ‘My Father,+ you are the confidential friend of my youth!+
5 Should one stay resentful to time indefinite, or keep watching [something] forever?’+ Look! You have spoken, and you went on to do bad things and prevail.”+
6 And Jehovah proceeded to say to me in the days of Jo·siʹah the king:+ “‘Have you seen what unfaithful Israel* has done?+ She is going upon every high mountain+ and underneath every luxuriant tree,+ that she may commit prostitution there.+
7 And after her doing all these things I kept saying that she should return even to me, but she did not return;+ and Judah kept looking at her own treacherous sister.+
8 When I got to see that, for the very reason that unfaithful Israel had committed adultery, I sent her away+ and proceeded to give the certificate of her full divorce to her,+ yet treacherously dealing Judah her sister did not become afraid, but she herself also began to go and commit prostitution.+
9 And her prostitution occurred because of [her] frivolous view, and she kept polluting the land+ and committing adultery with stones and with trees;+
10 and even for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart,+ only falsely,’+ is the utterance of Jehovah.”
11 And Jehovah went on to say to me: “Unfaithful Israel has proved her own soul to be more righteous than treacherously dealing Judah.+
12 Go,* and you must proclaim these words to the north+ and say:
“‘“Do return, O renegade Israel,” is the utterance of Jehovah.’+ ‘“I shall not have my face drop [angrily] upon YOU people,+ for I am loyal,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah.’ ‘“I shall not stay resentful to time indefinite.+
13 Only take note of your error, for it is against Jehovah your God* that you* have transgressed.+ And you continued scattering your ways to the strangers+ under every luxuriant tree,+ but to my voice YOU people did not listen,” is the utterance of Jehovah.’”
14 “Return, O YOU renegade sons,”+ is the utterance of Jehovah. “For I myself have become the husbandly owner of YOU people;+ and I will take YOU, one out of a city and two out of a family, and I will bring YOU to Zion.+
15 And I will give YOU shepherds in agreement with my heart,+ and they will certainly feed* YOU with knowledge and insight.+
16 And it must occur that YOU will become many and certainly bear fruit in the land* in those days,” is the utterance of Jehovah.+ “No more will they say, ‘The ark of the covenant of Jehovah!’+ nor will it come up into the heart, nor will they remember it+ or miss it, and no more will it be made.
17 In that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of Jehovah;+ and to her all the nations must be brought together+ to the name of Jehovah at Jerusalem,+ and they will no more walk after the stubbornness of their bad heart.”+
18 “In those days they will walk, the house of Judah alongside* the house of Israel,+ and together+ they will come out of the land of the north into the land that I gave as a hereditary possession to YOUR* forefathers.+
19 And I myself have said, ‘O how I proceeded to place you* among the sons and to give you the desirable land,+ the hereditary possession of the ornament of the armies of the nations!’ And I further said, ‘“My Father!”+ YOU people will call out to me, and from following me YOU people will not turn back.’
20 ‘Truly [as] a wife* has treacherously gone from her companion,+ so YOU, O house of Israel, have dealt treacherously with me,’+ is the utterance of Jehovah.”
21 On the beaten paths there has been heard a sound, the weeping, the entreaties of the sons of Israel. For they have twisted their way;+ they have forgotten Jehovah their God.*+
22 “Return, YOU renegade sons.+ I shall heal YOUR renegade condition.”*+
“Here we are! We have come to you, for you, O Jehovah, are our God.+
23 Truly the hills as well as the turmoil on the mountains+ belong to falsehood.+ Truly in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel.+
24 But the shameful thing+ itself has eaten up the toil of our forefathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame,+ and our humiliation keeps covering us;+ for it is toward Jehovah our God that we have sinned,+ we and our fathers from our youth on and down to this day,+ and we have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God.”+
Footnotes
^ “You,” fem. sing., addressed to Jerusalem, or Zion.
^ “Land,” MTSy; LXXVg, “woman.”
^ “His wife (woman).” Heb., ʼish·tohʹ.
^ Or, “husband.” Heb., ʼish.
^ “Raped,” M; Mmargin, “lain with.”
^ Lit., “the unfaithfulness (apostasy), Israel,” thus terming Israel a concrete example of unfaithfulness, or apostasy.
^ “You,” fem. sing.
^ “Your God.” Heb., ʼElo·haʹyikh, pl.
^ Or, “shepherd.”
^ “In the land (earth).” Heb., ba·ʼaʹrets.
^ Or, “up to.”
^ “Your,” pl., MVg; TLXXSy, “their.”
^ “You,” fem. sing.
^ Or, “woman.” Heb., ʼish·shahʹ.
^ “Their God.” Heb., ʼElo·heh·hemʹ, pl.
^ Or, “your state of unfaithfulness.” Lit., “your unfaithfulnesses.”