Jeremiah 3-4

Jeremiah 3

¹“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says the LORD.

²“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

³Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

⁴Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth!’?

⁵“‘Will he retain his anger forever? Will he keep it to the end?’ Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way.”

⁶Moreover, the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there.

⁷I said after she had done all these things, ‘She will return to me;’ but she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

⁸I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear, but she also went and played the prostitute.

⁹Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

¹⁰Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” says the LORD.

¹¹The LORD said to me, “Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

¹²Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not look in anger on you, for I am merciful,’ says the LORD. ‘I will not keep anger forever.

¹³Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’” says the LORD.

¹⁴“Return, backsliding children,” says the LORD, “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

¹⁵I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

¹⁶It will come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says the LORD, “they will no longer say, ‘the ark of the LORD’s covenant!’ It will not come to mind. They won’t remember it. They won’t miss it, nor will another be made.

¹⁷At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The LORD’s Throne;’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the LORD’s name, to Jerusalem. 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 they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

¹⁹“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’

²⁰“Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so you have dealt treacherously with me, house of Israel,” says the LORD.

²¹A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the petitions of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the LORD their God.

²²Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. “Behold, we have come to you; for you are the LORD our God.

²³Truly help from the hills, the tumult on the mountains, is in vain. Truly the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God.

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 confusion cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day. We have not obeyed the LORD our God’s voice.”

Jeremiah 4

¹“If you will return, Israel,” says the LORD, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed;

²and you will swear, ‘As the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations will bless themselves in him, and they will glory in him.”

³For the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns.

⁴Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

⁵Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let’s go into the fortified cities!’

⁶Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.”

⁷A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

⁸For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of the LORD hasn’t turned back from us.

⁹“It will happen at that day,” says the LORD, “that the heart of the king will perish, along with the heart of the princes. The priests will be astonished, and the prophets will wonder.”

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You will have peace;’ whereas the sword reaches to the heart.”

¹¹At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind blows from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse.

¹²A full wind from these will come for me. Now I will also utter judgments against them.”

¹³Behold, he will come up as clouds, and his chariots will be as the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! For we are ruined.

¹⁴Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long will your evil thoughts lodge within you?

¹⁵For a voice declares from Dan, and publishes evil from the hills of Ephraim:

¹⁶“Tell the nations, behold, publish against Jerusalem, ‘Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Judah.

¹⁷As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me,’” says the LORD.

¹⁸“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness, for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”

¹⁹My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

²⁰Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

²¹How long will I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

²²“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

²³I saw the earth and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light.

²⁴I saw the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth.

²⁵I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled.

²⁶I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, before his fierce anger.

²⁷For the LORD says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

²⁸For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it. I have planned it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.”

²⁹Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers. They go into the thickets and climb up on the rocks. Every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.

³⁰You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.

³¹For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”