1 ¶ If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him to marry someone else, can he ever return to her? wouldn’t the land be totally defiled? but the LORD says, You have played the harlot with many lovers; yet come back to me.

2 Look up to the barren hilltops, and see if there is anyplace where you have not been sexually immoral. You sat waiting for them along the highway, like an Arabian in the desert; and you have polluted the land with your prostitution and your rebellion against God.

3 Therefore the showers were held back, and there has been no spring rain; but you have the attitude of a whore, and refuse to be ashamed.

4 Have you not just now called to me, My father, you were my guide in my youth?

5 You say he will not always be angry, and his wrath will not go on forever. That is what you have said, but you go on doing all the evil you can.

6 ¶ The LORD asked me in the days of Josiah the king, Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? How she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there acted like a whore.

7 And after she had done all these things I said, Return to me. But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

8 She saw that I had divorced faithless Israel, and sent her away, because she had committed adultery; yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also.

9 And because she took the sin of adultery so lightly, she defiled the land, committing adultery with stone and wood.

10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not come back to me with her whole heart, but only hypocritically, said the LORD.

11 Then the LORD said to me, Faithless Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah.

12 ¶ Go to the north and proclaim these words, saying, The LORD says, Return faithless Israel; and I will not look angrily at you: for I am merciful, says the LORD, and I will not remain angry forever.

13 Only acknowledge your sin, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God, and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, says the LORD.

14 Turn, O backsliding children, says the LORD; for I am married to you: and I will take you one from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

15 And I will give you pastors after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

16 And the LORD says, It will come to pass, in those days when you grow to be many and have increased in the land, that they will no longer say, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: nor will they remember it, or think about it, or make another; it will not occur to them.

17 At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations will come together there, in Jerusalem, in the name of the LORD: and they will not walk any longer after the imagination of their evil heart.

18 In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given to your fathers as an inheritance.

19 Then I said, How I long to treat you as my children, and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful heritage among the nations? and I thought you would call me, Father; and would not turn away from me.

20 ¶ Surely as a wife treacherously deserts her husband, you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, says the LORD.

21 A sound is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and pleading for mercy: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God.

22 Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your faithlessness. Behold, we come to you; for you are the LORD our God.

23 Surely the hills, and the orgies on the mountains were a delusion: and in the LORD our God alone is the salvation of Israel.

24 From the time of our youth, all that our fathers worked for has been squandered on what is shameful; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

25 We lie down in our shame, and are covered by our disgrace: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.