Shared Word Translation
Jeremiah 3
“Suppose a man sends away his wife, and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife. May he return to her again? Would not that land be thoroughly defiled? Yet you have prostituted yourself with many lovers—
and would you return to me?”
declares the LORD.
“Lift your eyes to the barren heights and see:
Where have you not been violated?
Along the roads you sat waiting for them, like an Arab in the wilderness.
You defiled the land with your prostitution and your evil.
Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and there has been no latter rain.
Yet you have had the forehead of a prostitute;
you refused to be ashamed.
Have you not just now called to me,
‘My Father, you are the companion of my youth’?
‘Will he keep anger forever?
Will he preserve it to the end?’
Look—you have spoken,
but you have done evil and prevailed.”
The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She went up on every high mountain and beneath every green tree, and there she prostituted herself.
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.
I saw that, because of all the adulteries faithless Israel had committed, I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid; she too went and prostituted herself.
Because her prostitution was so casual, she defiled the land, committing adultery with stone and wood.
Even after all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in falsehood,” declares the LORD.
And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
Go and proclaim these words toward the north:
‘Return, faithless Israel,’
declares the LORD.
‘I will not look on you with anger,
for I am faithful,’
declares the LORD.
‘I will not keep anger forever.
Only acknowledge your guilt:
that you rebelled against the LORD your God,
scattering your ways among strangers beneath every green tree,
and that you did not listen to my voice,’
declares the LORD.
‘Return, wayward children,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I am your husband. I will take you, one from a city and two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.
I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they will shepherd you with knowledge and understanding.
And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land in those days,” declares 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 or miss it, nor will another be made.
At that time Jerusalem will be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations will gather to it, to the name of the LORD in Jerusalem. They will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
In 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 ancestors as an inheritance.
“I myself said,
‘How I would place you among the children
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance of the nations!’
And I said, ‘You will call me, “My Father,”
and you will not turn away from following me.’
But surely, as a woman betrays her companion, so you have betrayed me, house of Israel,” declares the LORD.
A voice is heard on the barren heights—
weeping, the pleas of the children of Israel—
because they have twisted their way;
they have forgotten the LORD their God.
“Return, wayward children;
I will heal your faithlessness.”
“Here we are; we have come to you,
for you are the LORD our God.
Surely the hills are a deception,
the tumult on the mountains.
Surely in the LORD our God
is the salvation of Israel.
But shame has devoured the labor of our ancestors from our youth:
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.
Let us lie down in our shame,
and let our disgrace cover us,
for we have sinned against the LORD our God—
we and our ancestors—from our youth until this day,
and we have not listened to the voice of the LORD our God.”