Jeremiah 3–4

Judah Is Unfaithful

3“If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and marries another man,

should her first husband come back to her again?

If he went back to her, wouldn’t the land become completely unclean?

But you have acted like a prostitute with many lovers,

and now you want to come back to me?” says the Lord.

²“Look up to the bare hilltops, Judah.

Is there any place where you have not been a prostitute?

You have sat by the road waiting for lovers,

like an Arab in the desert.

You made the land unclean,

because you did evil and were like a prostitute.

³So the rain has not come,

and there have not been any spring rains.

But your face still looks like the face of a prostitute.

You refuse even to be ashamed of what you did.

⁴Now you are calling to me,

‘My father, you have been my friend since I was young.

⁵Will you always be angry at me?

Will your anger last forever?’

Judah, you said this,

but you did as much evil as you could!”

Judah and Israel Are like Sisters

⁶When King Josiah was ruling Judah, the Lord said to me, “Did you see what unfaithful Israel did? She was like a prostitute with her idols on every hill and under every green tree. ⁷I said to myself, ‘Israel will come back to me after she does this evil,’ but she didn’t come back. And Israel’s wicked sister Judah saw what she did. ⁸Judah saw that I divorced unfaithful Israel because of her adultery, but that didn’t make Israel’s wicked sister Judah afraid. She also went out and acted like a prostitute! ⁹And she didn’t care that she was acting like a prostitute. So she made her country unclean and was guilty of adultery, because she worshiped idols made of stone and wood. ¹⁰Israel’s wicked sister didn’t even come back to me with her whole heart, but only pretended,” says the Lord.

¹¹The Lord said to me, “Unfaithful Israel had a better excuse than wicked Judah. ¹²Go and speak this message toward the north:

‘Come back, unfaithful people of Israel,’ says the Lord.

‘I will stop being angry at you,

because I am full of mercy,’ says the Lord.

‘I will not be angry with you forever.

¹³All you have to do is admit your sin—

that you turned against the Lord your God

and worshiped gods under every green tree

and didn’t obey me,’ ” says the Lord.

¹⁴“Come back to me, you unfaithful children,” says the Lord, “because I am your master. I will take one person from every city and two from every family group, and I will bring you to Jerusalem. ¹⁵Then I will give you new rulers who will be faithful to me, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶In those days there will be many of you in the land,” says the Lord. “At that time people will no longer say, ‘I remember the Ark of the Agreement.’ They won’t think about it anymore or remember it or miss it or make another one. ¹⁷At that time people will call Jerusalem The Throne of the Lord, and all nations will come together in Jerusalem to show respect to the Lord. They will not follow their stubborn, evil hearts anymore. ¹⁸In those days the family of Judah will join the family of Israel. They will come together from a land in the north to the land I gave their ancestors.

¹⁹“I, the Lord, said,

‘How happy I would be to treat you as my own children

and give you a pleasant land,

a land more beautiful than that of any other nation.’

I thought you would call me ‘My Father’

and not turn away from me.

²⁰But like a woman who is unfaithful to her husband,

family of Israel, you have been unfaithful to me,” says the Lord.

²¹You can hear crying on the bare hilltops.

It is the people of Israel crying and praying for mercy.

They have become very evil

and have forgotten the Lord their God.

²²“Come back to me, you unfaithful children,

and I will forgive you for being unfaithful.”

“Yes, we will come to you,

because you are the Lord our God.

²³It was foolish to worship idols on the hills

and on the mountains.

Surely the salvation of Israel

comes from the Lord our God.

²⁴Since our youth, shameful gods have eaten up in sacrifice

everything our ancestors worked for—

their flocks and herds,

their sons and daughters.

²⁵Let us lie down in our shame,

and let our disgrace cover us like a blanket.

We have sinned against the Lord our God,

both we and our ancestors.

From our youth until now,

we have not obeyed the Lord our God.”

4“If you will return, Israel,

then return to me,” says the Lord.

“If you will throw away your idols that I hate,

then don’t wander away from me.

²If you say when you make a promise,

‘As surely as the Lord lives,’

and you can say it in a truthful, honest, and right way,

then the nations will be blessed by him,

and they will praise him for what he has done.”

³This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem:

“Plow your unplowed fields,

and don’t plant seeds among thorns.

⁴Give yourselves to the service of the Lord,

and decide to obey him,

people of Judah and people of Jerusalem.

If you don’t, my anger will spread among you like a fire,

and no one will be able to put it out,

because of the evil you have done.

Trouble from the North

⁵“Announce this message in Judah and say it in Jerusalem:

‘Blow the trumpet throughout the country!’

Shout out loud and say,

‘Come together!

Let’s all escape to the strong, walled cities!’

⁶Raise the signal flag toward Jerusalem!

Run for your lives, and don’t wait,

because I am bringing disaster from the north

There will be terrible destruction.”

⁷A lion has come out of his den;

a destroyer of nations has begun to march.

He has left his home

to destroy your land.

Your towns will be destroyed

with no one left to live in them.

⁸So put on rough cloth,

show how sad you are, and cry loudly.

The terrible anger of the Lord

has not turned away from us.

⁹“When this happens,” says the Lord,

“the king and officers will lose their courage.

The priests will be terribly afraid,

and the prophets will be shocked!”

¹⁰Then I said, “Lord God, you have tricked the people of Judah and Jerusalem. You said, ‘You will have peace,’ but now the sword is pointing at our throats!”

¹¹At that time this message will be given to Judah and Jerusalem: “A hot wind blows from the bare hilltops of the desert toward the Lord’s people. It is not a gentle wind to separate grain from chaff. ¹²I feel a stronger wind than that. Now even I will announce judgments against the people of Judah.”

¹³Look! The enemy rises up like a cloud,

and his chariots come like a tornado.

His horses are faster than eagles.

How terrible it will be for us! We are ruined!

¹⁴People of Jerusalem, clean the evil from your hearts so that you can be saved.

Don’t continue making evil plans.

¹⁵A voice from Dan makes an announcement

and brings bad news from the mountains of Ephraim.

¹⁶“Report this to the nations.

Spread this news in Jerusalem:

‘Invaders are coming from a faraway country,

shouting words of war against the cities of Judah.

¹⁷The enemy has surrounded Jerusalem as men guard a field,

because Judah turned against me,’ ” says the Lord.

¹⁸“The way you have lived and acted

has brought this trouble to you.

This is your punishment.

How terrible it is!

The pain stabs your heart!”

Jeremiah’s Cry

¹⁹Oh, how I hurt! How I hurt!

I am bent over in pain.

Oh, the torture in my heart!

My heart is pounding inside me.

I cannot keep quiet,

because I have heard the sound of the trumpet.

I have heard the shouts of war.

²⁰Disaster follows disaster;

the whole country has been destroyed.

My tents are destroyed in only a moment.

My curtains are torn down quickly.

²¹How long must I look at the war flag?

How long must I listen to the war trumpet?

²²The Lord says, “My people are foolish.

They do not know me.

They are stupid children;

they don’t understand.

They are skillful at doing evil,

but they don’t know how to do good.”

Disaster Is Coming

²³I looked at the earth,

and it was empty and had no shape.

I looked at the sky,

and its light was gone.

²⁴I looked at the mountains,

and they were shaking.

All the hills were trembling.

²⁵I looked, and there were no people.

Every bird in the sky had flown away.

²⁶I looked, and the good, rich land had become a desert.

All its towns had been destroyed

by the Lord and his great anger.

²⁷This is what the Lord says:

“All the land will be ruined,

but I will not completely destroy it.

²⁸So the people in the land will cry loudly,

and the sky will grow dark,

because I have spoken and will not change my mind.

I have made a decision, and I will not change it.”

²⁹At the sound of the horsemen and the archers,

all the people in the towns run away.

They hide in the thick bushes

and climb up into the rocks.

All of the cities of Judah are empty;

no one lives in them.

³⁰Judah, you destroyed nation, what are you doing?

Why do you put on your finest dress

and decorate yourself with gold jewelry?

Why do you put color around your eyes?

You make yourself beautiful, but it is all useless.

Your lovers hate you;

they want to kill you.

³¹I hear a cry like a woman having a baby,

distress like a woman having her first child.

It is the sound of Jerusalem gasping for breath.

She lifts her hands in prayer and says,

“Oh! I am about to faint

before my murderers!”