Jeremiah 3:9-4:4

Amplified Bible

⁹Because of the thoughtlessness of Israel’s prostitution [her immorality mattered little to her], she desecrated the land and committed adultery with [idols of] stones and trees. ¹⁰Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with her whole heart, but rather in [blatant] deception [she merely pretended obedience to King Josiah’s reforms],” declares the Lord.^(A)

God Invites Repentance

¹¹And the Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel has proved herself less guilty than treacherous Judah [a land of renegades]. ¹²Go and proclaim these words toward the north [where the ten tribes have been taken as captives] and say,

‘Return, faithless Israel,’ says the Lord;
‘I will not ^[a]look on you in anger.
For I am gracious and merciful,’ says the Lord;
‘I will not be angry forever.
¹³
‘Only understand fully and acknowledge your wickedness and guilt,
That you have rebelled (transgressed) against the Lord your God
And have scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree,
And you have not obeyed My voice,’ says the Lord.
¹⁴
‘Return, O faithless children [of the twelve tribes],’ says the Lord,
‘For I am a master and husband to you,
And I will take you [not as a nation, but individually]—one from a city and two from a [tribal] family—
And I will bring you to Zion.’^(B)

¹⁵“Then [in the final time] I will give you [spiritual] shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and [true] understanding. ¹⁶It will be in those days when you have [repented and] multiplied and increased in the land,” says the Lord, “they will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It will not come to mind, nor will they [seriously] remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again [for instead of the ark, which symbolized My presence, I will be present].^(C) ¹⁷At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The Throne of the Lord,’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name (renown) of the Lord; and they will not walk anymore after the stubbornness of their [own] evil heart. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and ^[b]they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.

¹⁹“Then I said,

‘How [gloriously and honorably] I would set you among My children
And give you a pleasant land—a wonderful heritage,
The most beautiful inheritance of the nations!’
And I said, ‘You shall call Me, My Father
And not turn away from following Me.’
²⁰
“Surely, as a wife treacherously (unfaithfully) leaves her husband,
So you have dealt treacherously with Me,
O house of Israel,” says the Lord.

²¹
A voice is heard on the barren heights,
The weeping and pleading of the children of Israel,
Because they have lost their way,
They have [deliberately] forgotten the Lord their God.
²²
“Return, O faithless sons,” [says the Lord],
“I will heal your unfaithfulness.”
[They answer] “Behold, we come to You,
For You are the Lord our God.
²³
“Truly, [the hope of salvation from] the hill [where idols are worshiped] is a deception,
A tumult and noisy multitude on the mountains;
Truly in the Lord our God
Is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴“But the shameful act [of idolatry] has consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth—their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. ²⁵Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor and humiliation 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 voice of the Lord our God.”

Judah Threatened with Invasion

4 “If you will return, O Israel,” says the Lord,
“If you will return to Me,
And if you will put away your detestable things and remove your man-made gods from My sight,
And not stray or waver,
²
And if you swear [your oaths], ‘As the Lord lives,’
In truth, in justice, and in righteousness,
Then the nations will bless themselves in Him,
And in Him they will glory.”

³For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,

“Plow your uncultivated ground [for a season],
And do not sow among thorns.
⁴
“Circumcise (dedicate, sanctify) yourselves to the Lord
And remove the foreskin [sins] of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
Or else My wrath will go forth like fire [consuming all that gets in its way]
And burn and there will be no one to quench it,
Because of the evil of your acts.”

Footnotes

Jeremiah 3:12 Lit cause My countenance to fall.
Jeremiah 3:18 The kingdom divided when King Solomon’s son Rehoboam came to the throne. The ten northern tribes rejected him, rebelled against the Davidic line and chose Jeroboam as their king.