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Unfaithful Israel

3If^* a man divorces his wife
   and she goes from him
and becomes another man’s wife,
   will he return to her?
Would not such a land be greatly polluted?
You have played the whore with many lovers;
   and would you return to me?

says the Lord.
² Look up to the bare heights,^* and see!
   Where have you not been lain with?
By the waysides you have sat waiting for lovers,
   like a nomad in the wilderness.
You have polluted the land
   with your whoring and wickedness.
³ Therefore the showers have been withheld,
   and the spring rain has not come;
yet you have the forehead of a whore,
   you refuse to be ashamed.
⁴ Have you not just now called to me,
   ‘My Father, you are the friend of my youth—
⁵ will he be angry for ever,
   will he be indignant to the end?’
This is how you have spoken,
   but you have done all the evil that you could.

4If you return, O Israel,

says the Lord,
   if you return to me,
if you remove your abominations from my presence,
   and do not waver,
² and if you swear, ‘As the Lord lives!’
   in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,
then nations shall be blessed^* by him,
   and by him they shall boast.

3 For thus says the Lord to the people of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem:
Break up your fallow ground,
   and do not sow among thorns.
⁴ Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
   remove the foreskin of your hearts,
   O people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
or else my wrath will go forth like fire,
   and burn with no one to quench it,
   because of the evil of your doings.