Jeremiah 3–4

3RD CHAPTER

¹A saying: 

If a man divorces his wife 

and she leaves him and marries another man, 

her first husband shouldn’t go back to her again. 

The land would become thoroughly polluted. 

“You have acted like a prostitute who has many lovers. 

And now you want to come back to me!” declares the Lord. 

²“Look at the bare hills, and see. 

You have had sex with men in every place. 

You sat by the roadside waiting for them like a nomad in the desert. 

You have polluted the land with your prostitution and wickedness. 

³So the rain has been withheld, and there have been no spring showers. 

Yet, you have the shameless look of a prostitute, 

and you refuse to blush. 

⁴But now you are calling to me. 

You say, ‘Father! You have been my companion 

ever since I was young. 

⁵He won’t hold a grudge forever. 

He won’t always be angry.’ 

You have said and done all the evil things that you could.” 

The Lord Offers to Forgive the Ten Tribes of Israel despite Their Idolatry

⁶When Josiah was king, the Lord asked me, “Did you see what unfaithful Israel did? She went up every high mountain and under every large tree, and she acted like a prostitute there. ⁷I thought that after she had done all this that she would come back to me. But she didn’t come back, and her treacherous sister Judah saw her. ⁸Judah saw that I sent unfaithful Israel away because of her adultery and that I gave Israel her divorce papers. But treacherous Judah, her sister, wasn’t afraid. She also acted like a prostitute. ⁹Because she wasn’t concerned about acting like a prostitute, she polluted the land and committed adultery with standing stones and wood pillars. ¹⁰Even after all this, Israel’s treacherous sister Judah didn’t wholeheartedly come back to me.She was deceitful,” declares the Lord. 

¹¹Then the Lord said to me, “Unfaithful Israel was less guilty than treacherous Judah. ¹²Go and proclaim these things to the north: 

“ ‘Come back, unfaithful Israel. 

It is the Lord speaking. 

I will no longer frown on you 

because I’m merciful,’ declares the Lord. 

‘I will no longer be angry with you. 

¹³Admit that you’ve done wrong! 

You have rebelled against the Lord your God. 

You have given yourself to strangers under every large tree. 

You have not obeyed me,’ declares the Lord. 

¹⁴“Come back, you rebellious people,” declares the Lord. “I’m your husband. I will take you, one from every city and two from every family, and bring you to Zion. ¹⁵I will give you shepherds after my own heart. They will be shepherds who feed you with knowledge and insight. ¹⁶In those days you will be fertile, and your population will increase in the land,” declares the Lord. “People will no longer talk about the ark of the Lord’s promise. It will no longer come to mind. They won’t remember it, miss it, or make another one. ¹⁷At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord. All nations will gather in Jerusalem because the name of the Lord will be found there. They will no longer follow their own stubborn, evil ways. ¹⁸In those days the nation of Judah will live with the nation of Israel. They will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave their ancestors as their own property. 

¹⁹“I wanted to treat you like children 

and give you a pleasant land, 

the most beautiful property among the nations. 

I thought that you would call me Father and wouldn’t turn away from me. 

²⁰But like a wife who betrays her husband, 

so you, nation of Israel, betrayed me,” declares the Lord. 

²¹The sound of crying is heard on the hills. 

It is the crying and the pleading of the people of Israel. 

They have become crooked 

and have forgotten the Lord their God. 

²²“Come back, you rebellious people, 

and I will forgive you for being unfaithful.” 

Here we are! 

We have come to you because you are the Lord our God. 

²³Truly, the noise from the hills, from the mountains, 

is the noise of false worship. 

Truly, the Lord our God will rescue us. 

²⁴Ever since we were young, 

the shameful worship ⸤of Baal⸥ 

has taken everything our ancestors worked for, 

their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. 

²⁵We must lie down in our shame 

and be covered by our disgrace. 

Ever since we were young, we and our ancestors have sinned 

against the Lord our God. 

We haven’t obeyed the Lord our God. 

4TH CHAPTER

¹The Lord declares, 

“If you come back, Israel, 

if you come back to me, 

if you take your disgusting idols out of my sight 

and you don’t wander away from me, 

²if you take the oath, ‘As the Lord lives …’ 

in an honest, fair, and right way, 

then the nations will be blessed, 

and they will be honored by me.” 

The Lord Will Bring Destruction on Judah from the North

³This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem: 

Plow your unplowed fields, 

and don’t plant among thorns. 

⁴Be circumcised by the Lord, 

and get rid of the foreskins of your hearts, 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. 

If you don’t, my fury will flare up like a fire. 

It will burn, and no one will be able to put it out, 

because of the evil you do. 

⁵Report this message in Judah. 

Make it heard in Jerusalem. 

Say, “Blow the ram’s horn throughout the land.” 

Shout loudly and say, “Gather together! 

Let’s go into the fortified cities.” 

⁶Raise the flag to signal people to go to Zion. 

Take cover! 

Don’t just stand there! 

I’m bringing disaster and widespread destruction from the north. 

⁷A lion has come out of its lair. 

A destroyer of nations has set out. 

He has left his place to destroy your land. 

Your cities will be ruined, and no one will live in them. 

⁸So put on sackcloth, mourn, and cry 

because the Lord’s burning anger hasn’t turned away from us. 

⁹“When that day comes,” declares the Lord, 

“the king and the leaders will lose their courage. 

The priests will be stunned. 

The prophets will be amazed and astonished.” 

¹⁰I said, “Almighty Lord, 

you certainly have deceived these people and Jerusalem. 

You said that everything would go well for them, 

but a sword is held at their throats.” 

¹¹At that time it will be said to these people and to Jerusalem: 

“A hot wind from the heights will blow in the desert 

on the tracks of my people. 

It will not be a wind that winnows^aor cleanses. 

¹²It will be a stronger wind than that. 

It will come from me. 

Now, I will pass sentence on them.” 

¹³The enemy comes up like clouds. 

His chariots are like a raging wind. 

His horses are faster than eagles. 

How horrible it will be for us! We will be destroyed! 

¹⁴Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart 

so that you may be rescued. 

Don’t continue making evil plans. 

¹⁵A message is heard from Dan, 

and a report of disaster comes from the mountains of Ephraim. 

¹⁶Warn the nations about these things. 

Bring them to the attention of Jerusalem. 

“Hostile troops are coming from a distant country. 

They are shouting battle cries against the cities of Judah. 

¹⁷They surround them like men guarding a field, 

because Judah has rebelled against me,” 

declares the Lord. 

¹⁸“You brought this on yourself. 

This is your punishment. 

It is bitter. 

It breaks your heart.” 

¹⁹My anguish, my anguish! 

I writhe in pain. 

My heart is beating wildly! 

My heart is pounding! 

I can’t keep quiet 

because I hear a ram’s horn sounding the alarm for war. 

²⁰One disaster follows another. 

The whole land is ruined. 

My tents are suddenly destroyed. 

Their curtains are torn in an instant. 

²¹How long must I see the battle flag and hear the sound of rams’ horns? 

²²“My people are fools. They don’t know me. 

They are stupid people. They don’t understand. 

They are experts in doing wrong, 

and they don’t know how to do good.” 

²³I see the earth. It’s formless and empty. 

I see the sky. Its lights are gone. 

²⁴I see the mountains. They are shaking, 

and the hills are swaying. 

²⁵I see that there are no people, 

and every bird has flown away. 

²⁶I see that the fertile land has become a desert, 

and all its cities are torn down 

because of the Lord and his burning anger. 

²⁷This is what the Lord says: 

The whole earth will be ruined, 

although I will not destroy it completely. 

²⁸The earth will mourn, and the sky will grow black. 

I have spoken, and I have planned it. 

I won’t change my plans, and I won’t turn back. 

²⁹All the people in the city will flee 

at the sound of riders and archers. 

They will go off into the thickets 

and climb among the rocks. 

The entire city will be abandoned, and no one will live in it. 

³⁰You are going to be destroyed! 

What are you going to do? 

Why do you dress in red and put on gold jewelry? 

Why do you wear eye shadow? 

You are making yourself beautiful for nothing. 

Your lovers reject you; they want to kill you. 

³¹I hear a woman in labor. 

I hear the woman cry with anguish as she gives birth to her first child. 

My people Zion are gasping for breath. 

They are stretching out their hands, saying, 

“How horrible it is for us! 

We’re defenseless in the presence of murderers!”