Jeremiah 3–4

CHAPTER 3

The Polluted Land

¹God ¹says, “^aIf a husband divorces his wife

And she goes from him

And belongs to another man,

Will he still return to her?

Will not that land be completely ²polluted?

But you ^bare a harlot with many ³lovers;

Yet you ^cturn to Me,” declares Yahweh.

²“Lift up your eyes to the ^abare heights and see;

Where have you not been ravished?

By the roads you have ^bsat for them

Like ¹an Arab in the wilderness,

And you have ^cpolluted a land

With your harlotry and with your evil.

³“Therefore the ^ashowers have been withheld,

And the ¹late rain has not ²come.

Yet you had a ^bharlot’s forehead;

You refused to feel dishonor.

⁴“Have you not just now called to Me,

‘^aMy Father, You are the ^1bclose companion of my ^cyouth?

⁵‘^aWill He be angry forever?

Will He keep it to the end?’

Behold, you have spoken

And have done evil things,

And you have ¹had your way.”

Faithless Israel Called to Repentance

⁶Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She ^awent up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there.

⁷“^aI said, ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her ^btreacherous sister Judah saw it.

⁸“And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and ^agiven her a certificate of divorce, yet her ^btreacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.

⁹“So it was, because of the lightness of her harlotry, that she ^apolluted the land and committed adultery with ^bstones and trees.

¹⁰“Yet in spite of all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in ^alying,” declares Yahweh.

¹¹And Yahweh said to me, “^aFaithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

¹²“Go and call out these words toward the north and say,

‘^1aReturn, faithless Israel,’ declares Yahweh;

‘^bI will not ²look upon you in anger.

For I am ^cOne of lovingkindness,’ declares Yahweh;

‘I will not be angry forever.

¹³‘Only ^1aacknowledge your iniquity,

That you have transgressed against Yahweh your God

And have ^bscattered your ways of harlotry to the strangers ^cunder every green tree,

And you have not listened to My voice,’ declares Yahweh.

¹⁴‘¹Return, O faithless sons,’ declares Yahweh;

‘For I am a ^amaster to you,

And I will take you one from a city and two from a family,

And ^bI will bring you to Zion.’

¹⁵“Then I will give you ^ashepherds after My own heart, who will ^1bshepherd you on knowledge and understanding.

¹⁶“It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and fruitful in the land,” declares Yahweh, “they will ^ano longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of Yahweh.’ And it will not come upon the heart, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again.

¹⁷“At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The ^aThrone of Yahweh,’ and ^ball the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the ^cname of Yahweh; nor will they ^dwalk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart.

¹⁸“^aIn those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together ^bfrom the land of the north to the ^cland that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.

¹⁹“Then I said,

‘How I would set you among ¹My sons

And give you a pleasant land,

The most ^abeautiful inheritance of the nations!’

And I said, ‘You shall call Me, ^b“My Father,”

And not turn away from following Me.’

²⁰“Surely, as a woman treacherously departs from her ¹lover,

So you have ^adealt treacherously with Me,

O house of Israel,” declares Yahweh.

²¹A voice is heard on the ^abare heights,

The weeping and the supplications of the sons of Israel;

Because they have perverted their way,

They have ^bforgotten Yahweh their God.

²²¹“Return, O faithless sons;

^aI will heal your faithlessness.”

“Behold, we come to You,

For You are Yahweh our God.

²³“Surely, ^athe hills are a lie,

A tumult on the mountains.

Surely in ^bYahweh our God

Is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴“But ^athe shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

²⁵“Let us lie down in our ^ashame, and let our dishonor cover us; for we have sinned against Yahweh our God, we and our fathers, ^bfrom our youth even to this day. And we have not listened to the voice of Yahweh our God.”

CHAPTER 4

Yahweh Calls Israel to Return to Him

¹“If you will ^areturn, O Israel,” declares Yahweh,

“Then you should return to Me.

And ^bif you will put away your detested things from My presence

And will not waver

²And you will ^aswear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’

^bIn truth, in justice, and in righteousness;

Then the ^cnations will ¹be blessed in Him,

And ^din Him they will boast.”

³For thus says Yahweh to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,

“^1aBreak up your fallow ground,

And ^bdo not sow among thorns.

⁴“^aCircumcise yourselves to Yahweh

And remove the foreskins of your heart,

Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,

Lest My ^bwrath go forth like fire

And burn with ^cnone to quench it

Because of the evil of your deeds.”

Evil from the North

⁵Declare in Judah and make it heard in Jerusalem and say,

“^aBlow the trumpet in the land;

Call out, make your voice full, and say,

‘^bGather yourselves, and let us go

Into the fortified cities.’

⁶“Lift up a ^astandard toward Zion!

Seek safety, do not stand still,

For I am bringing ^bevil from the north,

And great destruction.

⁷“A ^alion has gone up from his thicket,

And a ^bdestroyer of nations has set out;

He has gone out from his place

To ^cmake your land a desolation.

Your cities will be turned into ruins

Without inhabitant.

⁸“For this, ^aI gird myself with sackcloth,

Lament and wail;

For the ^bburning anger of Yahweh

Has not turned back from us.”

⁹“It will be in that day,” declares Yahweh, “that the ^aheart of the king and the heart of the princes will perish; and the priests will be appalled, and the ^bprophets will be astonished.”

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Surely You have utterly ^adeceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘^bYou will have peace’; whereas a sword touches the ¹throat.”

¹¹In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A ^1ascorching wind from the bare heights in the wilderness along the way of the daughter of My people—not to winnow and not to cleanse,

¹²a wind too full for these things—will come ¹for My purpose; now I will also speak judgments against them.

¹³“Behold, he ^agoes up like clouds,

And his ^bchariots like the whirlwind;

His horses are ^cswifter than eagles.

Woe to us, for ^dwe are devastated!”

¹⁴Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem,

That you may be saved.

How long will your ^awicked thoughts

Lodge within you?

¹⁵For a voice declares from ^aDan,

And makes wickedness heard from Mount Ephraim.

¹⁶“Make mention of it to the nations, saying, ‘Behold!’

Make it heard over Jerusalem,

‘Besiegers come from a ^afar country,

And ^bgive forth their voices against the cities of Judah.

¹⁷‘Like watchmen of a field they are ^aagainst her round about

Because she has ^brebelled against Me,’ declares Yahweh.

¹⁸“Your ^aways and your deeds

Have done these things to you.

This is your evil. How ^bbitter!

How it has touched your heart!”

Anguish over Judah’s Desolation

^19aMy ¹soul, my ²soul! I am in anguish! ³Oh, my heart!

My ^bheart is pounding in me;

I cannot be silent

Because ⁴you have heard, O my soul,

The ^csound of the trumpet,

The shout of war.

^20aDestruction upon destruction is called out,

For the ^bwhole land is devastated;

Suddenly my ^ctents are devastated,

My curtains in an instant.

²¹How long must I see the standard

And hear the sound of the trumpet?

²²“^aFor My people are ignorant fools,

They know Me not;

They are simpleminded children

And have no understanding.

They are wise to ^bdo evil,

But to do good they do not know.”

²³I saw on the earth, and behold, it was ^1aformless and void;

And to the heavens, and they had no light.

²⁴I saw on the mountains, and behold, they were ^aquaking,

And all the hills ¹moved to and fro.

²⁵I saw, and behold, there was no man,

And all the ^abirds of the sky had fled.

²⁶I saw, and behold, ¹the ^afruitful orchard was a wilderness,

And all its cities were torn down

Before Yahweh, before His burning anger.

²⁷For thus says Yahweh,

“The ^awhole land shall be a desolation,

Yet I will ^bnot execute a complete destruction.

²⁸“For this the ^aearth shall mourn

And the ^bheavens above be dark

Because I have ^cspoken; I have purposed,

And I will not ¹relent, nor will I turn from it.”

²⁹At the sound of the horseman and bowman ^aevery city flees;

They ^bgo into the thickets and climb up among the rocks;

^cEvery city is forsaken,

And no man inhabits them.

³⁰And you, O devastated one, ^awhat will you do?

Although you dress in scarlet,

Although you decorate yourself with ornaments of gold,

Although you ^benlarge your eyes with paint,

In vain you make yourself beautiful.

Your ^1clovers despise you;

They seek your life.

³¹For I heard a sound as of a woman in labor pains,

The distress as of one giving birth to her first child,

The sound of the daughter of Zion ^agasping for breath,

^bStretching out her ¹hands, saying,

“Ah, woe is me, for my soul faints before murderers.”