1God says, “If a husband divorces his wife, 2“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see; 3“Therefore the showers have been withheld, 4“Have you not just now called to Me, 5‘Will He be angry forever? Faithless Israel 6Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. 7“And I thought, ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8“And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. 9“And it came about because of the lightness of her harlotry, that she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. 10“And yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares the LORD. God Invites Repentance 11And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
12“Go, and proclaim these words toward the north and say, 13‘Only acknowledge your iniquity, 14‘Return, O faithless sons,’ declares the LORD; 15“Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding. 16“And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,” declares the LORD, “they shall say no more, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor shall it be made again. 17“At that time they shall call Jerusalem ‘The Throne of the LORD,’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name of the LORD; nor shall they walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart. 18“In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and 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, 20“Surely, as a woman treacherously departs from her lover, 21A voice is heard on the bare heights, 22“Return, O faithless sons, 23“Surely, the hills are a deception, 24“But the shameful thing has consumed the labor of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25“Let us lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, since our youth even to this day. And we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.” New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org Bible Hub |