Jeremiah 3:1–10

A saying:^a ‘Look, if a man divorces his wife,

and she goes from him and she becomes another man’s wife,^b

will he return to her again?’

Will not that land be greatly defiled?

And you have prostituted yourself with many lovers,

would you now return to me?” declares^c Yahweh.

²“Lift up your eyes at the barren heights,

and see where you have not been ravished.

Beside the roads you sat for them like an Arab in the desert,^d

and you have defiled the land

with your fornication

and with your wickedness.

³Therefore rain showers have been withheld,

and the spring rain has not come.

Yet you have^e the forehead of a woman prostitute,

you refuse to be ashamed.

⁴Have you not just now called to me,

‘My father, you are the close friend of my youth?

⁵Will he be angry forever?^f

Will he maintain it always’?^g

Look, you have spoken,

but you have done all the evil that you could.”^h

Yahweh Gives Israel a Letter of Divorce

⁶Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah, the king, “Have you seen what apostateⁱ Israel has done? She has gone on every high hill and under every leafy tree and she has prostituted herself there. ⁷And I thought, ‘After her doing all these things to me she will return,’ but she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.^{j 8}And I saw that for this very reason, that^k on account of apostate^l Israel committing adultery I divorced her and gave the letter of divorce to her. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid and she went and prostituted herself also. ⁹And it was because of the frivolity of her fornication that she defiled the land and committed adultery with the stone and with the tree. ¹⁰Yet even in all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only^m in pretense,”ⁿ declares^o Yahweh.