1Saying: “If a man sends away his wife, and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, will he return to her again? Would not that land be utterly defiled?” Yet you have played the whore with many companions—and would you return to me? declares Yahweh.
2Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see: where have you not been violated? By the roadsides you sat waiting for them, like an Arab in the wilderness. You defiled the land with your whorings and with your evil.
3So the showers were withheld, and there was no spring rain. Yet you had the forehead of a whoring woman; you refused to be ashamed.
4Have you not just now called to me, “My Father, you are the companion of my youth”?
5“Will he keep his anger forever? Will he hold it to the end?” Look, you have spoken this, yet you have done all the evils you could.
6And Yahweh said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there she played the whore.
7And I said, “After she has done all these things she will return to me,” but she did not return; and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8And I saw that for all the reasons that faithless Israel had committed adultery I had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.
9And it came about that through the ease of her whoring she defiled the land, and she committed adultery with stone and with wood.
10And yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in falsehood, declares Yahweh.
11And Yahweh said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
12Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: Return, faithless Israel, declares Yahweh; I will not look on you in anger, for I am loyal, declares Yahweh; I will not keep my anger forever.
13Only acknowledge your guilt, that against Yahweh your God you have rebelled, and have scattered your ways to strangers under every green tree, and to my voice you have not listened, declares Yahweh.
14Return, faithless children, declares Yahweh, for I am your master; and I will take you, one from a city and two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.
15And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they will shepherd you with knowledge and understanding.
16And it will be, when you multiply and are fruitful in the land in those days, declares Yahweh, they will no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of Yahweh.” It will not come to mind; they will not remember it, nor miss it, nor will it be made again.
17At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of Yahweh, and all the nations will be gathered to it, for the name of Yahweh, to Jerusalem; and they will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
18In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and together they will come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.
19But I myself had said: How gladly would I set you among the children and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful heritage of the nations! And I said: You will call me “My Father,” and you will not turn back from following me.
20Surely as a wife is treacherous to her companion, so you have been treacherous to me, house of Israel, declares Yahweh.
21A voice is heard on the barren heights, the weeping and pleadings of the children of Israel, because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.
22Return, faithless children; I will heal your faithlessness. “Here we are, we have come to you, for you are Yahweh our God.”
23Surely the hills are a delusion, the tumult on the mountains. Surely in Yahweh our God is the salvation of Israel.
24But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth—their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
25Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us, for against Yahweh our God we have sinned, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day; and we have not listened to the voice of Yahweh our God.
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