1. Elohim said, “If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, does he return to her again? Would not that land be made greatly unclean? But you have committed whoring with many lovers. And would you return to Me?” declares יהוה.
2. “Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see: where have you not lain with men? Besides the ways you have sat for them like an Araḇian in the wilderness. And you made the land unclean with your whorings and your evil.
3. “Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain. You have had a whore’s forehead, you refuse to be ashamed.
4. “Shall you not from now on cry to Me, ‘My father, You are the guide of my youth?
5. ‘Does one bear a grudge forever? Does one keep it to the end?’ See, you have spoken and done the evils that you could.”
6. And יהוה said to me in the days of Yoshiyahu the sovereign, “Have you seen what backsliding Yisra’ĕl has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there committed whoring.
7. “And after she had done all these, I said ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Yehuḏah saw it.
8. “And I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Yisra’ĕl had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Yehuḏah did not fear, but went and committed whoring too.
9. “And it came to be, through her frivolous whoring, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and wood.
10. “And yet for all this her treacherous sister Yehuḏah has not turned to Me with all her heart, but falsely,” declares יהוה.
11. And יהוה said to me, “Backsliding Yisra’ĕl has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Yehuḏah.
12. “Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, O backsliding Yisra’ĕl,’ declares יהוה, ‘I shall not look on you in displeasure, for I am kind,’ declares יהוה, ‘and I do not bear a grudge forever.