Jeremiah 3:1–10

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.