Unfaithful Israel

1If3.1 Q Ms Gk Syr: MT Saying, If a man divorces his wife

and she goes from him

and becomes another man's wife,

will he return to her?

Would not such a land be greatly polluted?

You have played the whore with many lovers;

and would you return to me?

says the LORD.

2Look up to the bare heights,3.2 Or the trails and see!

Where have you not been lain with?

By the waysides you have sat waiting for lovers,

like a nomad in the wilderness.

You have polluted the land

with your whoring and wickedness.

3Therefore the showers have been withheld,

and the spring rain has not come;

yet you have the forehead of a whore,

you refuse to be ashamed.

4Have you not just now called to me,

‘My Father, you are the friend of my youth—

5will he be angry for ever,

will he be indignant to the end?’

This is how you have spoken,

but you have done all the evil that you could.

A Call to Repentance

6The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and played the whore there? 7And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me’; but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it. 8She3.8 Q Ms Gk Mss Syr: MT I saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. 9Because she took her whoredom so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. 10Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretence, says the LORD.

11Then the LORD said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah. 12Go, and proclaim these words towards the north, and say:

Return, faithless Israel,

says the LORD.

I will not look on you in anger,

for I am merciful,

says the LORD;

I will not be angry for ever.

13Only acknowledge your guilt,

that you have rebelled against the LORD your God,

and scattered your favours among strangers under every green tree,

and have not obeyed my voice,

says the LORD.

14Return, O faithless children,

says the LORD,

for I am your master;

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,

and I will bring you to Zion.

15I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. 16And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; nor shall another one be made. 17At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will. 18In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.

19I thought

how I would set you among my children,

and give you a pleasant land,

the most beautiful heritage of all the nations.

And I thought you would call me, My Father,

and would not turn from following me.

20Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband,

so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel,

says the LORD.

21A voice on the bare heights3.21 Or the trails is heard,

the plaintive weeping of Israel's children,

because they have perverted their way,

they have forgotten the LORD their God:

22Return, O faithless children,

I will heal your faithlessness.

‘Here we come to you;

for you are the LORD our God.

23Truly the hills are3.23 Gk Syr Vg: Heb Truly from the hills is a delusion,

the orgies on the mountains.

Truly in the LORD our God

is the salvation of Israel.

24But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had laboured, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonour cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.’