Israel’s unfaithfulness, God’s continuing love
3
📚“They say, ‘If a man divorces✭his wife,
and she goes away from him and becomes
another man’s, may he return
to her again?
Would not the land be greatly polluted✭?
But you have been the prostitute✭
with many lovers;
yet return to me again”,
says the LORD.
2 📚“Lift up your eyes to the barren
high places and look.
Where have you not been ravished?
By the roads you sat for them,
like an Arabian in the desert,
and you have polluted the land
with your prostitution and
your wickedness.
3 📚✭Therefore the showers have been
withheld,
and there has been no latter rain,
for you had a prostitute’s forehead,
you refused to be ashamed.
4 📚✭Even at this time did you not cry
out to me,
‘My father, you are the guide
of my youth?
5 📚Will he remain angry forever?
Will he maintain it to the end?’
See, you have said this,
and done what evil you could”.
6 📚✭The LORD also said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has behaved like a prostitute. 7 📚And after she had done all these things, I said, Return to me. But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 📚And when, for all the causes backsliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her a certificate of divorce, I saw that her treacherous sister Judah had no fear, but also went and behaved like a prostitute. 9 📚And it happened through her thoughtless prostitution, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and wood. 10 📚✭And in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD”.
11 📚✭And the LORD said to me, “Backsliding Israel is less unrighteous than treacherous Judah. 12 📚Go and proclaim these words toward the north✭, and say:
“Return, backsliding Israel,
says the LORD,
and I will not cause my anger
to fall on you;
for I am merciful✭,
says the LORD,
and I will not remain
angry forever.
13 📚✭Only acknowledge your guilt,
that you have transgressed against
the LORD your God,
and have scattered your favours
to foreigners under every green tree,
and have not obeyed my voice,
says the LORD.
14 📚“Return, O backsliding children,
says the LORD, for I am married to you✭.
And I will take you, one from a city,
and two✭ of a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.
15 📚✭And I will give you shepherds
after my heart,
who will feed you with knowledge
and understanding.
16 📚✭✭And it will come about in those days, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, says the LORD, they will no longer say✭, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD’, nor will it come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they visit it, nor will it be made again. 17 📚✭At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The Throne of the LORD’, and all the nations✭ will be gathered to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem; neither will they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. 18 📚In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given as an inheritance to your fathers.
19 📚✭“But I said, How can I put you
among the children,
and give you a pleasant land,
the most beautiful inheritance of nations?
and I said, You will call me,
‘My father’ and will not turn
away from me.
20 📚Surely as a wife treacherously
departs from her husband,
so have you dealt treacherously with me,
O house of Israel, says the LORD”.
21 📚✭A voice was heard on the high places,
the weeping and pleading
of the children of Israel;
for they have perverted their way,
and they have forgotten
the LORD their God.
22 📚✭“Return, you backsliding children,
and I will heal your backslidings”.
See, we come to you, for you are
the LORD our God.
23 📚Truly in vain is salvation hoped for
from the hills,
and from the many mountains.
Truly in the LORD our God is
the salvation of Israel.
24 📚For the thing of shame✭ has devoured
the labour of our fathers
from our youth,
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.
25 📚✭We lie down in our shame,
and our disgrace covers us,
for we have sinned against the LORD
our God,
we and our fathers,
from our youth up to this day,
and have not obeyed the voice
of the LORD our God.