18 kIn those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land lof the north to mthe land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.

19  “ ‘I said,

How I would set you among my sons,

and give you a pleasant land,

a heritage most beautiful of all nations.

And I thought you would ncall me, My Father,

and would not turn from following me.

20  oSurely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband,

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

declares the Lord.’ ”

21  A voice on the pbare heights is heard,

qthe weeping and pleading of Israel’s sons

because they have perverted their way;

they have forgotten the Lord their God.

22  r“Return, O faithless sons;

sI will heal your faithlessness.”

“Behold, we come to you,

for you are the Lord our God.

23  Truly tthe hills are a delusion,

the orgies2 on the mountains.

uTruly in the Lord our God

is the salvation of Israel.

24 “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25 vLet us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For wwe have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”