Jeremiah 2–6

God’s Care for Israel

2The Lord told me ²to proclaim this message to everyone in Jerusalem.

“I remember how faithful you were when you were young,

how you loved me when we were first married;

you followed me through the desert, through a land that had not been sown.

³Israel, you belonged to me alone;

you were my sacred possession.

I sent suffering and disaster

on everyone who hurt you.

I, the Lord, have spoken.”

The Sin of Israel’s Ancestors

⁴Listen to the Lord’s message, you descendants of Jacob, you tribes of Israel. ⁵The Lord says:

“What accusation did your ancestors bring against me?

What made them turn away from me?

They worshipped worthless idols

and became worthless themselves.

⁶They did not care about me,

even though I rescued them from Egypt

and led them through the wilderness:

a land of deserts and sand dunes,

a dry and dangerous land

where no one lives

and no one will even travel.

⁷I brought them into a fertile land,

to enjoy its harvests and its other good things.

But instead they ruined my land;

they defiled the country I had given them.

⁸The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’

My own priests did not know me.

The rulers rebelled against me;

the prophets spoke in the name of Baal

and worshipped useless idols.

The ’s Case against His People

⁹“And so I, the Lord, will state my case against my people again.

I will bring charges against their descendants.

¹⁰Go west to the island of Cyprus,

and send someone eastwards to the land of Kedar.

You will see that nothing like this has ever happened before.

¹¹No other nation has ever changed its gods,

even though they were not real.

But my people have exchanged me,

the God who has brought them honour,

for gods that can do nothing for them.

¹²And so I command the sky to shake with horror,

to be amazed and astonished,

¹³for my people have committed two sins:

they have turned away from me,

the spring of fresh water,

and they have dug cisterns,

cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.

The Results of Israel’s Unfaithfulness

¹⁴“Israel is not a slave;

he was not born into slavery.

Why then do his enemies hunt him down?

¹⁵They have roared at him like lions;

they have made his land a desert,

and his towns lie in ruins, completely abandoned.

¹⁶Yes, those of Memphis and Tahpanhes

have cracked his skull.

¹⁷Israel, you brought this on yourself!

You deserted me, the Lord your God,

while I was leading you along the way.

¹⁸What do you think you will gain by going to Egypt

to drink water from the Nile?

What do you think you will gain by going to Assyria

to drink water from the Euphrates?

¹⁹Your own evil will punish you,

and your turning from me will condemn you.

You will learn how bitter and wrong it is

to abandon me, the Lord your God,

and no longer to remain faithful to me.

I, the Sovereign Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

Israel Refuses to Worship the

²⁰The Sovereign Lord says,

“Israel, long ago you rejected my authority;

you refused to obey me and worship me.

On every high hill

and under every green tree

you worshipped fertility gods.

²¹I planted you like a choice vine

from the very best seed.

But look what you have become!

You are like a rotten, worthless vine.

²²Even if you washed with the strongest soap,

I would still see the stain of your guilt.

²³How can you say you have not defiled yourself,

that you have never worshipped Baal?

Look how you sinned in the valley;

see what you have done.

You are like a wild camel in heat,

running about loose,

²⁴rushing into the desert.^b

When she is in heat, who can control her?

No male that wants her has to trouble himself;

she is always available at mating time.

²⁵Israel, don’t wear your feet out,

or let your throat become dry

from chasing after other gods.

But you say, ‘No! I can’t turn back.

I have loved foreign gods

and will go after them.’ ”

Israel Deserves to be Punished

²⁶The Lord says, “Just as a thief is disgraced when caught, so all you people of Israel will be disgraced—your kings and officials, your priests and prophets. ²⁷You will all be disgraced—you that say that a tree is your father and that a rock is your mother. This will happen because you turned away from me instead of turning to me. But when you are in trouble, you ask me to come and save you.

²⁸“Where are the gods that you made for yourselves? When you are in trouble, let them save you—if they can! Judah, you have as many gods as you have cities. ²⁹What is your complaint? Why have you rebelled against me? ³⁰I punished you, but it did no good; you would not let me correct you. Like a raging lion, you have murdered your prophets. ³¹People of Israel, listen to what I am saying. Have I been like a desert to you, like a dark and dangerous land? Why, then, do you say that you will do as you please, that you will never come back to me? ³²Does a young woman forget her jewellery, or a bride her wedding dress? But my people have forgotten me for more days than can be counted. ³³You certainly know how to chase after lovers. Even the worst of women can learn from you. ³⁴Your clothes are stained with the blood of the poor and innocent, not with the blood of burglars.

“But in spite of all this, ³⁵you say, ‘I am innocent; surely the Lord is no longer angry with me.’ But I, the Lord, will punish you because you deny that you have sinned. ³⁶You have cheapened yourself by turning to the gods of other nations. You will be disappointed by Egypt, just as you were by Assyria. ³⁷You will turn away from Egypt, hanging your head in shame. I, the Lord, have rejected those you trust; you will not gain anything from them.”

Unfaithful Israel

3The Lord says, “If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife, he cannot take her back again. This would completely defile the land. But, Israel, you have had many lovers, and now you want to return to me! ²Look up at the hilltops. Is there any place where you have not acted like a prostitute? You waited for lovers along the roadside, as an Arab waits for victims in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution. ³That is why the rains were held back, and the spring showers did not come. You even look like a prostitute; you have no shame.

⁴“And now you say to me, ‘You are my father, and you have loved me ever since I was a child. ⁵You won’t always be angry; you won’t be cross with me for ever.’ Israel, that is what you said, but you did all the evil you could.”

Israel and Judah Must Repent

^6*When Josiah was king, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what Israel, that unfaithful woman, has done? She has turned away from me, and on every high hill and under every green tree she has acted like a prostitute. ⁷I thought that after she had done all this, she would surely return to me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it all. ⁸Judah also saw that I divorced Israel and sent her away because she had turned from me and had become a prostitute. But Judah, Israel’s unfaithful sister, was not afraid. She too became a prostitute ⁹and was not at all ashamed. She defiled the land, and she committed adultery by worshipping stones and trees. ¹⁰And after all this, Judah, Israel’s unfaithful sister, only pretended to return to me; she was not sincere. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

¹¹Then the Lord told me that, even though Israel had turned away from him, she had proved to be better than unfaithful Judah. ¹²He told me to go and say to Israel, “Unfaithful Israel, come back to me. I am merciful and will not be angry; I will not be angry with you for ever. ¹³Only admit that you are guilty and that you have rebelled against the Lord, your God. Confess that under every green tree you have given your love to foreign gods and that you have not obeyed my commands. I, the Lord, have spoken.

¹⁴“Unfaithful people, come back; you belong to me. I will take one of you from each town and two from each clan, and I will bring you back to Mount Zion. ¹⁵I will give you rulers who obey me, and they will rule you with wisdom and understanding. ¹⁶Then when you have become numerous in that land, people will no longer talk about my Covenant Box. They will no longer think about it or remember it; they will not even need it, nor will they make another one. ¹⁷When that time comes, Jerusalem will be called ‘The Throne of the Lord’, and all nations will gather there to worship me. They will no longer do what their stubborn and evil hearts tell them. ¹⁸Israel will join with Judah, and together they will come from exile in the country in the north and will return to the land that I gave your ancestors as a permanent possession.”

The Idolatry of God’s People

¹⁹The Lord says,

“Israel, I wanted to accept you as my child

and give you a delightful land,

the most beautiful land in all the world.

I wanted you to call me father,

and never again turn away from me.

²⁰But like an unfaithful wife,

you have not been faithful to me.

I, the Lord, have spoken.”

²¹A noise is heard on the hilltops:

it is the people of Israel crying and pleading,

because they have lived sinful lives

and have forgotten the Lord their God.

²²Return, all of you who have turned away from the Lord;

he will heal you and make you faithful.

You say, “Yes, we are coming to the Lord, because he is our God. ²³We were not helped at all by our pagan worship on the hilltops. Help for Israel comes only from the Lord our God. ²⁴But the worship of Baal, the god of shame, has made us lose flocks and herds, sons and daughters—everything that our ancestors have worked for since ancient times. ²⁵We should lie down in shame and let our disgrace cover us. We and our ancestors have always sinned against the Lord our God; we have never obeyed his commands.”

A Call to Repentance

4The Lord says, “People of Israel, if you want to turn, then turn back to me. If you are faithful to me and remove the idols I hate, ²it will be right for you to swear by my name. Then^c all the nations will ask me to bless them, and they will praise me.”

^3*The Lord says to the people of Judah and Jerusalem,…