It is commonly said: If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and marry another man, shall he return to her any more? shall not that woman be polluted, and defiled? but thou hast prostituted thyself to many lovers: nevertheless return to me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee.

²Lift up thy eyes on high: and see where thou hast not prostituted thyself: thou didst sit in the ways, waiting for them as a robber in the wilderness: and thou hast polluted the land with thy fornications, and with thy wickedness.

³Therefore the showers were withholden, and there was no lateward rain: thou hadst a harlot’s forehead, thou wouldst not blush.

⁴Therefore at the least from this time call to me: Thou art my father, the guide of my virginity:

⁵Wilt thou be angry for ever, or wilt thou continue unto the end? Behold, thou hast spoken, and hast done evil things, and hast been able.

⁶And the Lord said to me in the days of king Josias: Hast thou seen what rebellious Israel hath done? she hath gone of herself upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and hath played the harlot there.

⁷And when she had done all these things, I said: Return to me, and she did not return. And her treacherous sister Juda saw,

⁸That because the rebellious Israel had played the harlot, I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Juda was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also herself.

⁹And by the facility of her fornication she defiled the land, and played the harlot with stones and with stocks.

¹⁰And after all this, her treacherous sister Juda hath not returned to me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, saith the Lord.

¹¹And the Lord said to me: The rebellious Israel hath justified her soul, in comparison of the treacherous Juda.

¹²Go, and proclaim these words towards the north, and thou shalt say: Return, O rebellious Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not turn away my face from you: for I am holy, saith the Lord, and I will not be angry for ever.

¹³But yet acknowledge thy iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God: and thou hast scattered thy ways to strangers under every green tree, and hast not heard my voice, saith the Lord.

¹⁴Return, O ye revolting children, saith the Lord: for I am your husband: and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a kindred, and will bring you into Sion.

¹⁵And I will give you pastors according to my own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine.

¹⁶And when you shall be multiplied, and increase in the land in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more: The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come upon the heart, neither shall they remember it, neither shall it be visited, neither shall that be done any more.

¹⁷At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord: and all the nations shall be gathered together to it, in the name of the Lord to Jerusalem, and they shall not walk after the perversity of their most wicked heart.

¹⁸In those days the house of Juda shall go to the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land which I gave to your fathers.

¹⁹But I said: How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a lovely land, the goodly inheritance of the armies of the Gentiles? And I said: Thou shalt call me father and shalt not cease to walk after me.

²⁰But as a woman that despiseth her lover, so hath the house of Israel despised me, saith the Lord.

²¹A voice was heard in the highways, weeping and howling of the children of Israel: because they have made their way wicked, they have forgotten the Lord their God.

²²Return, you rebellious children, and I will heal your rebellions. Behold we come to thee: for thou art the Lord our God.

²³In very deed the hills were liars, and the multitude of the mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴Confusion hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

²⁵We shall sleep in our confusion, and our shame shall cover us, because we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers from our youth even to this day, and we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God.

Chapter 4

If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return to me: if thou wilt take away thy stumblingblocks out of my sight, thou shalt not be moved.

²And thou shalt swear: As the Lord liveth, in truth, and in judgment, and in justice: and the Gentiles shall bless him, and shall praise him.

³For thus saith the Lord to the men of Juda and Jerusalem: Break up anew your fallow ground, and sow not upon thorns:

⁴Be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, ye men of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my indignation come forth like fire, and burn, and there be none that can quench it because of the wickedness of your thoughts.

⁵Declare ye in Juda, and make it heard in Jerusalem: speak, and sound with the trumpet in the land: cry aloud, and say: Assemble yourselves, and let us go into strong cities.

⁶Set up the standard in Sion. Strengthen yourselves, stay not: for I bring evil from the north, and great destruction.

⁷The lion is come up out of his den, and the robber of nations hath roused himself: he is come forth out of his place, to make thy land desolate: thy cities shall be laid waste, remaining without an inhabitant.

⁸For this gird yourselves with haircloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned away from us.

⁹And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord: That the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes: and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall be amazed.

¹⁰And I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, hast thou then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: You shall have peace: and behold the sword reacheth even to the soul?

¹¹At that time it shall be said to this people, and to Jerusalem: A burning wind is in the ways that are in the desert of the way of the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse.

¹²A full wind from these places shall come to me: and now I will speak my judgments with them.

¹³Behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe unto us, for we are laid waste.

¹⁴Wash thy heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayst be saved: how long shall hurtful thoughts abide in thee?

¹⁵For a voice of one declaring from Dan, and giving notice of the idol from mount Ephraim.

¹⁶Say ye to the nations: Behold it is heard in Jerusalem, that guards are coming from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Juda.

¹⁷They are set round about her, as keepers of fields: because she hath provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord.

¹⁸Thy ways, and thy devices have brought these things upon thee: this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it hath touched thy heart.

¹⁹My bowels, my bowels are in pain, the senses of my heart are troubled within me, I will not hold my peace, for my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of battle.

²⁰Destruction upon destruction is called for, and all the earth is laid waste: my tents are destroyed on a sudden, and my pavilions in a moment.

²¹How long shall I see men fleeing away, how long shall I hear the sound of the trumpet?

²²For my foolish people have not known me: they are foolish and senseless children: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.

²³I beheld the earth, and lo it was void, and nothing: and the heavens, and there was no light in them.

²⁴I looked upon the mountains, and behold they trembled: and all the hills were troubled.

²⁵I beheld, and lo there was no man: and all the birds of the air were gone.

²⁶I looked, and behold Carmel was a wilderness: and all its cities were destroyed at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of the wrath of his indignation.

²⁷For thus saith the Lord: All the land shall be desolate, but yet I will not utterly destroy.

²⁸The Earth shall mourn, and the heavens shall lament from above: because I have spoken, I have purposed, and I have not repented, neither am I turned away from it.

²⁹At the voice of the horsemen, and the archers, all the city is fled away: they have entered into thickets and climbed up the rocks: all the cities are forsaken, and there dwelleth not a man in them.

³⁰But when thou art spoiled what wilt thou do? though thou clothest thyself with scarlet, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, and paintest thy eyes with stibic stone, thou shalt dress thyself out in vain: thy lovers have despised thee, they will seek thy life.

³¹For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail, anguishes as of a woman in labour of a child. The voice of the daughter of Sion, dying away, spreading her hands: Woe is me, for my soul hath fainted because of them that are slain.

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