Jeremiah 3

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.”