Jeremiah 3:14

This is what Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies, says: “I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.

Yahweh says: “Behold, I will reverse the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places. The city will be built on its own hill, and the palace will be inhabited in its own place.

“Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries where I have driven them in my anger, and in my wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them again to this place. I will cause them to dwell safely.

As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”

her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an abomination to Yahweh. You shall not cause the land to sin, which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.

But you, Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Your offspring also would have been as the sand and the descendants of your body like its grains. His name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.”

“Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”

It will happen that whoever will call on Yahweh’s name shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as Yahweh has said, and among the remnant, those whom Yahweh calls.

Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

So the king will desire your beauty, honor him, for he is your lord.

who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil,

The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

For it will be so within the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.

Why do you go about so much to change your ways? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria.

Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. “Behold, we have come to you; for you are Yahweh our God.

“ ‘ “Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you,” says the Lord Yahweh, “and you became mine.

Tell them, ‘ “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you die, house of Israel?” ’

I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah also will stumble with them.

You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your help.

Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me.

and in the wilderness where you have seen how that Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.”

For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has known your walking through this great wilderness. These forty years, Yahweh your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.

Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will lead you away.

Yahweh didn’t make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today.

Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.”

A revelation is within my heart about the disobedience of the wicked: “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”

Many times they have afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say,

Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Return to him from whom you have deeply revolted, children of Israel.

It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel. I will help you,” says Yahweh. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

“Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been carried from their birth, that have been carried from the womb.

Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go.

For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth.

“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways,

Will you not from this time cry to me, ‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?’

Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there.

“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”

Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says Yahweh of Armies.

Yahweh says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

“I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain,’ says Yahweh. ‘You that say, “Who would come down against us?” or “Who would enter into our homes?”

I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”

Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company.

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh.

I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.

and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, even for all this remnant; for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes see us;

so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’ ”

They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’

In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the iniquity of Israel will be sought for, and there will be none; also the sins of Judah, and they won’t be found; for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant.

It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail.

Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.

She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.’

They don’t consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

Therefore tell them: Yahweh of Armies says: ‘Return to me,’ says Yahweh of Armies, ‘and I will return to you,’ says Yahweh of Armies.

For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

Charge those who are rich in this present world that they not be arrogant, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy;

Therefore as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as innumerable as the sand which is by the sea shore, were fathered by one man, and him as good as dead.

For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy offspring have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.”

For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you.

Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah.

If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed, as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stump remains when they are cut down; so the holy seed is its stock.”

For though your people, Israel, are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness.

Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says Yahweh, the God of Israel.

I will tell the north, ‘Give them up!’ and tell the south, ‘Don’t hold them back! Bring my sons from far away, and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

Yahweh says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away for your transgressions.

“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your weddings; how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

“They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says Yahweh.

“ ‘Will he retain his anger forever? Will he keep it to the end?’ Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way.”

I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear; but she also went and played the prostitute.

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 gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

“I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply.

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh.

then I will also cast away the offspring of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his offspring to be rulers over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to be reversed and will have mercy on them.”

Why do you boast in the valleys, your flowing valley, backsliding daughter? You trusted in her treasures, saying, ‘Who will come to me?’

You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.

My people are determined to turn from me. Though they call to the Most High, he certainly won’t exalt them.

“If thieves came to you, if robbers by night—oh, what disaster awaits you—wouldn’t they only steal until they had enough? If grape pickers came to you, wouldn’t they leave some gleaning grapes?

Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved;

but if you return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in the uttermost part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause my name to dwell there.’

It will happen in that day that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.

You will not be called Forsaken any more, nor will your land be called Desolate any more; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for Yahweh delights in you, and your land will be married.

Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says Yahweh; ‘I will not look in anger on you; for I am merciful,’ says Yahweh. ‘I will not keep anger forever.

“If you will return, Israel,” says Yahweh, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed;

What has my beloved to do in my house, since she has behaved lewdly with many, and the holy flesh has passed from you? When you do evil, then you rejoice.”

“Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities.

How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”

I have sent also to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, ‘Every one of you must return now from his evil way, amend your doings, and don’t go after other gods to serve them, then you will dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers:’ but you have not inclined your ear, nor listened to me.

It will be in that day,” says Yahweh, “that you will call me ‘my husband,’ and no longer call me ‘my master.’

Turn at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make known my words to you.