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          DASV: Jeremiah 3    

1 "If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him,
      and becomes another man's wife,
           can he get back together with her again?
      Would that not totally pollute the land?
      But you have played the prostitute with many lovers,
     v yet you expect to return to me?"
          v says the LORD.
2 "Lift up your eyes to the bare hilltops, and see.
      Where have you not committed adultery with other gods?
      By the roadways you have sat waiting for them,
           as an Arab in the desert.
      You have polluted the land with your whoring
           and with your wickedness.
3 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
           and there has been no spring rain.
      Yet you have the defiant look of a prostitute,
           you refuse to be ashamed.
4 Even now you call out to me,
      'My Father, you have been my guide since my youth.
5 Will you retain your anger forever?
      Will you stay mad to the end?'
      This is what you say,
           yet you have done all the evil you could."

6 The LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you
seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on
every high mountain and under every green tree, and there
has prostituted herself.
7 I thought, 'After she had done all these things, surely she
will return to me. But she has not returned and her faithless
sister Judah saw it.
8 She saw that for the adultery of Israel I sent her away
and gave her a bill of divorce, yet her treacherous sister
Judah was not afraid; she also went and became a prostitute.
9 Because she took her whoring so lightly, the land was
polluted, since she committed adultery with wood and stone.
10 Yet after all this her treacherous sister Judah has not
returned to me with her whole heart, but has only pretended
to do so," says the LORD.
11 Then the LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel has shown herself
to be more righteous than treacherous Judah.
12 Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say,
      'Return, faithless Israel, says the LORD.
           I will not look on you with anger,
      for I am merciful, says the LORD,
           I will not be angry forever.
13 Just acknowledge your sin,
           that you have rebelled against the LORD your God,
      and have scattered your favors to the strangers
          under every green tree,
           and you have not obeyed my voice,'" says the LORD.

14 "Come back, O faithless children," says the LORD; "for I
am your master and I will bring you back, one from a city,
and two from a clan, I will bring you to Zion.
15 I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will
shepherd you with knowledge and understanding.
16 It will come to pass, when your numbers have multiplied and
increased in the land, in those days," says the LORD, "they
will no longer say, 'The ark of the covenant of the LORD.'
It will not even come to mind or be remembered. It will not
be missed and another one will not be made.
17 At that time they will call Jerusalem 'The Throne of the
LORD,' and all the nations will be gathered to Jerusalem to
honor the name of the LORD. They will no longer follow after
the stubbornness of their own evil hearts.
18 In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house
of Israel, and they will both return from the land of the north
to the land that I gave your forefathers for an inheritance."

19 Then I said,
      "How I would love to treat you like one of my own children
           and give you a pleasant land,
           a beautiful heritage of all the nations!
      Then I thought, 'You would call me My Father,'
           and would not turn away from following me.
20 But as an unfaithful wife leaves her husband,
      so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel,"
                says the LORD.

21 A voice is heard on the bare hilltops,
      the weeping and pleading of the children of Israel,
      because they have perverted their way;
      they have forgotten the LORD their God.
22 Return, O faithless children;
      I will heal your unfaithfulness.
      'Look, we are coming to you,
           for you are the LORD our God.
23 We realize the hills are a delusion,
           the sacred orgies on the mountains.
      Truly the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God.
24 But from our youth the shameful idolatrous thing
      has devoured all that our fathers had labored for,
           their flocks and herds,
           their sons and daughters.
25 Let us lie down in our shame,
      and let our disgrace cover us;
      for we have sinned against the LORD our God,
      both we and our forefathers,
           from our youth even to this day.
      We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.'"

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