1. “If a man divorces his wife and she goes and marries someone else, the first husband cannot take her back. If he did, it would make the land unclean. Judah, you and all your false gods are like a prostitute with many lovers! So why do you think you can come back to me?” This message is from the Lord.
2. “Look up to the bare hilltops, Judah. Is there any place where you have not had sex with your lovers? You sat by the road waiting for lovers, like an Arab in the desert. You made the land ‘dirty’ with all the evil sins you did when you were unfaithful to me.
3. You sinned, so the rain has not come. There has not been any springtime rains. But still you refuse to be ashamed. The look on your face is like that of a prostitute who refuses to be ashamed.
4. But didn’t you just call me ‘Father’? Didn’t you say, ‘You have been my friend since I was a child’?
5. You also said, ‘God will not always be angry with me. His anger will not continue forever.’ “Judah, you say that, but you do as much evil as you can.”
6. The Lord spoke to me during the time King Josiah was ruling the nation of Judah. He said, “Jeremiah, you saw the bad things Israel did! You saw how she was unfaithful to me. She was unfaithful to me with every idol on every hill and under every green tree.
7. I said to myself, ‘Israel will come back to me after she has finished doing these evil things.’ But she did not come back to me. And Israel’s unfaithful sister, Judah, saw what she did.
8. Israel was unfaithful, and she knew why I sent her away. Israel knew that I divorced her because she committed the sin of adultery. But that did not make her unfaithful sister afraid. Judah was not afraid. She also went out and acted like a prostitute.
9. Judah did not care that she was acting like a prostitute. So she made her country ‘dirty.’ She committed the sin of adultery by worshiping idols made out of stone and wood.
10. Israel’s unfaithful sister did not come back to me with her whole heart. She only pretended that she came back to me.” This message is from the Lord.
11. The Lord said to me, “Israel was not faithful to me, but she had a better excuse than unfaithful Judah.
12. Jeremiah, look toward the north and speak this message: “‘Come back, you faithless people of Israel.’ This message is from the Lord. ‘I will stop frowning at you. I am full of mercy.’ The Lord says, ‘I will not be angry with you forever.