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 the Lord.

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

Where have you not been violated?

By the roads you have ^bsat for them

Like an Arab in the desert,

And you have ^cpolluted a land

With your harlotry and with your wickedness.

³“Therefore the ^ashowers have been withheld,

And there has been no spring rain.

Yet you had a ^bharlot’s forehead;

You refused to be ashamed.

⁴“Have you not just now called to Me,

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

⁵‘^aWill He be angry forever?

Will He ¹be indignant to the end?’

Behold, you have spoken

And have done evil things,

And you have ²had your way.”

Faithless Israel

⁶Then the Lord 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 ¹thought, ‘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 writ of divorce, yet her ^btreacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.

⁹“Because of the lightness of her harlotry, 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 ^adeception,” declares the Lord.

God Invites Repentance

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

¹²“Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say,

‘^aReturn, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord;

‘^bI will not ¹look upon you in anger.

For I am ^cgracious,’ declares the Lord;

‘I will not be angry forever.

¹³‘Only ^1aacknowledge your iniquity,

That you have transgressed against the Lord your God

And have ^bscattered your ²favors to the strangers ^cunder every green tree,

And you have not obeyed My voice,’ declares the Lord.

¹⁴‘Return, O faithless sons,’ declares the Lord;

‘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 ^bfeed you on knowledge and understanding.

¹⁶“It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,” declares the Lord, “they will ^ano longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ And it will not come to mind, 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 the Lord,’ and ^ball the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the ^cname of the Lord; 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, ^bMy 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 the Lord.

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 the Lord their God.

²²“Return, O faithless sons,

^aI will heal your faithlessness.”

“Behold, we come to You;

For You are the Lord our God.

²³“Surely, ^athe hills are a deception,

A tumult on the mountains.

Surely in the ^bLord our God

Is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴“But ^athe shameful thing has consumed 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 humiliation cover us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, ^bfrom our youth even to this day. And we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

Chapter 4

Judah Threatened with Invasion

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

“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 the Lord lives,’

^bIn truth, in justice and in righteousness;

Then the ^cnations will bless themselves in Him,

And ^din Him they will glory.”

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

“^1aBreak up your fallow ground,

And ^bdo not sow among thorns.

⁴“^aCircumcise yourselves to the Lord

And remove the foreskins of your heart,

Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,

Or else My ^bwrath will go forth like fire

And burn with ^cnone to quench it,

Because of the evil of your deeds.”

⁵Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say,

“^aBlow the trumpet in the land;

Cry aloud and say,

‘^bAssemble yourselves, and let us go

Into the fortified cities.’

⁶“Lift up a ^astandard toward Zion!

Seek refuge, 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 waste.

Your cities will be ruins

Without inhabitant.

⁸“For this, ^aput on sackcloth,

Lament and wail;

For the ^bfierce anger of the Lord

Has not turned back from us.”

⁹“It shall come about in that day,” declares the Lord, “that the ^aheart of the king and the heart of the princes will fail; and the priests will be appalled and the ^bprophets will be astounded.”

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord ¹God! Surely You have utterly ^adeceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘^bYou will have peace’; whereas a sword touches the ²throat.”

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

¹²a wind too strong for ¹this—will come ²at My command; now I will also pronounce 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 ruined!”

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 proclaims wickedness from Mount Ephraim.

¹⁶“Report it to the nations, now!

Proclaim over Jerusalem,

‘Besiegers come from a ^afar country,

And ^blift 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 the Lord.

¹⁸“Your ^aways and your deeds

Have ¹brought these things to you.

This is your evil. How ^bbitter!

How it has touched your heart!”

Lament over Judah’s Devastation

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

My ^bheart is pounding in me;

I cannot be silent,

Because ³you have heard, O my soul,

The ^csound of the trumpet,

The alarm of war.

^20aDisaster on disaster is proclaimed,

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 foolish,

They know Me not;

They are stupid children

And have no understanding.

They are shrewd to ^bdo evil,

But to do good they do not know.”

²³I looked on the earth, and behold, it was ^1a formless and void;

And to the heavens, and they had no light.

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

And all the hills ¹moved to and fro.

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

And all the ^abirds of the heavens had fled.

²⁶I looked, and behold, ¹the ^afruitful land was a wilderness,

And all its cities were pulled down

Before the Lord, before His fierce anger.

²⁷For thus says the Lord,

“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 ¹change My mind, nor will I turn from it.”

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

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

^cEvery city is forsaken,

And no man dwells in them.

³⁰And you, O desolate 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 ¹cry as of a woman in labor,

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

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

^bStretching out her ²hands, saying,

“Ah, woe is me, for ³I faint before murderers.”