1They say, "If a man sends his wife away, and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, will he go back to her again? Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers; yet come back to me," says the LORD.
2"Lift up your eyes to the high places, and see where you have not been lain with. You sat waiting for them beside the roads, like an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your whoredoms and with your wickedness."
3"So the showers have been held back, and there has been no latter rain. Yet you had the forehead of a prostitute; you refused to be ashamed."
4"Will you not from this time cry to me, 'My father, you are the guide of my youth'?"
5"Will he keep his anger for ever? Will he hold on to it to the end? Look, you have spoken and done evil things, as much as you were able."
6The LORD also said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there she has played the harlot."
7"And after she had done all these things I said, 'Turn back to me.' But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it."
8"And I saw that, for all the ways backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had sent her away and given her a bill of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid, but went and played the harlot too."
9"And because she took her whoredom so lightly, she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with wooden blocks."
10"And even after all this, her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretence, says the LORD."
11And the LORD said to me, "Backsliding Israel has shown herself more in the right than treacherous Judah."
12"Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, 'Return, backsliding Israel, says the LORD; and I will not make my anger fall on you, for I am merciful, says the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever."
13"'Only admit your guilt, that you have broken faith with the LORD your God, and have scattered your favours to strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says the LORD."
14"'Turn back, backsliding children, says the LORD; for I am married to you. And I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion."
15"'And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding."
16"'And when you have grown many and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they will no longer say, The ark of the covenant of the LORD. It will not come to mind. They will not remember it, nor miss it, nor will it be made again."
17"'At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem. And they will no longer follow the stubborn thoughts of their evil heart."
18"'In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as their inheritance."
19"'But I said, How shall I set you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a fine heritage among the armies of nations? And I said, You shall call me My father, and shall not turn away from me."
20"'Surely as a wife breaks faith and leaves her husband, so you have broken faith with me, house of Israel, says the LORD.'"
21A voice is heard on the high places, the weeping and the pleading of the children of Israel; for they have twisted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God.
22"Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." "Look, we come to you, for you are the LORD our God."
23"Truly the hills are no help, and all the noise on the mountains is no help. Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel."
24"For shame has eaten up what our fathers worked for, ever since we were young: their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters."
25"We lie down in our shame, and our disgrace covers us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God."