Jeremiah 3 — Septuagint (LXX)

If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man's, can he return to her again? Would not that land be utterly defiled? Yet you have prostituted yourself with many lovers — and still you would return to me? declares the LORD.

Lift your eyes to the barren heights and look — where have you not been violated? You sat waiting for them beside the roads like a desert nomad lying in ambush. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and your wickedness.

So the showers have been withheld and the spring rains have not come. Yet you have the brazen face of a prostitute — you refuse to be ashamed.

Have you not just now called out to me, 'My Father! You are the companion of my youth'?

'Will he stay angry forever? Will he hold a grudge to the end?' Look — you have spoken this way, yet you have done every evil you could.

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.

I saw that for all the acts of adultery that faithless Israel had committed, I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid — she too went and prostituted herself.

Because she treated her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and with wood.

And even after all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart but only in pretense, declares the LORD.

Then the LORD said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: Return, faithless Israel — declares the LORD. I will not look on you with anger, for I am faithful in love, declares the LORD. I will not hold a grudge forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt — that you have rebelled against the LORD your God and scattered your favors to strangers under every spreading tree, and you have not obeyed my voice, declares the LORD.

Return, unfaithful children — declares the LORD — for I am your master. I will take you, one from a city and two from a clan, and I will bring you to Zion.

Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they will tend you with knowledge and wisdom.

At that time they will call Jerusalem 'the throne of the LORD,' and all nations will gather to it — to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem. They will no longer walk in the stubbornness of their evil hearts.

In those days the house of Judah will walk together with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave as an inheritance to your ancestors.

I myself said, 'How gladly I would set you among my children and give you a desirable land — the most beautiful inheritance among the nations!' I said, 'You will call me "My Father" and never turn away from following me.'

But just as a wife betrays her husband, so you have betrayed me, O house of Israel, declares the LORD.

A voice is heard on the barren heights — the weeping and pleading of the children of Israel, for they have twisted their path; they have forgotten the LORD their God.

"Return, unfaithful children — I will heal your faithlessness." "Here we are — we come to you, for you are the LORD our God.

Truly, the hills are a delusion, the commotion on the mountains is a lie. Truly, in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

The shameful thing has devoured the labor of our ancestors since our youth — their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God — we and our ancestors, from our youth until this very day. We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God."