Jeremiah 3

3 ¹They say: If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, will he return to her again? Would not that land be utterly defiled? You have prostituted yourself with many lovers—and yet you would return to me? declares your Father.

²Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and look: where have you not been violated? By the roadsides you sat waiting for lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and your wickedness. ³So the showers have been withheld, and the spring rains have not come. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed. ⁴Have you not just now called out to me, 'My Father, you are the friend of my youth'? ⁵"Will he stay angry forever? Will he keep his wrath to the end?" This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can.

Two Sisters Who Forgot Their Father

⁶Our Father said to me in King Josiah's days: "Have you seen what unfaithful Israel did? She went up every high hill, under every spreading tree, and prostituted herself there. ⁷I thought after she did all this she would return to me, but she didn't, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸She saw that for all unfaithful Israel's adulteries I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah had no fear; she too went and prostituted herself. ⁹Because her prostitution meant so little, she made the land unclean, committing adultery with stones and trees. ¹⁰Even so, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me wholeheartedly, but only in pretense, declares your Father."

¹¹Our Father said to me: Unfaithful Israel proved more righteous than treacherous Judah.

¹²Go and proclaim toward the north: Return, unfaithful Israel, declares your Father. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares your Father; I will not stay angry forever. ¹³Only acknowledge your guilt—that you rebelled against your Father, lavished your favors on strangers under every spreading tree, and did not obey my voice, declares your Father. ¹⁴Return, you faithless children, declares your Father, for I am your husband. I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion. ¹⁵Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, feeding you with knowledge and understanding.

¹⁶When you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, declares your Father, no one will say again, 'The ark of the covenant of our Father.' It will not come to mind, be remembered, or be missed, nor will another be made.

¹⁷"Then they will call Jerusalem the Throne of our Father, and all the nations will gather there to honor our Father's name. No longer will they follow their stubborn, evil hearts. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will join the house of Israel, and together they will come from the northern land to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance. ¹⁹I myself said, 'How gladly would I set you among my children and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation!' And I thought you would call me 'My Father' and never turn away from following me. ²⁰But like a wife unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, house of Israel, declares your Father.

²¹A voice is heard on the barren heights—the weeping and pleading of Israel's children—because they have perverted their way and forgotten their Father.

²²"Return, you faithless children; I will heal your faithlessness." "Here we are, we come to you, for you are our Father. ²³Surely the uproar on the hills and mountains is a delusion; surely in our Father is the salvation of Israel. ²⁴From our youth that shameful thing has devoured the fruit of our ancestors' labor—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. ²⁵Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us. For we have sinned against our Father—we and our ancestors—from our youth to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of our Father."