Jeremiah 3:7

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

Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

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?” ’

They are unfaithful to Yahweh; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

“Put the trumpet to your lips! Something like an eagle is over Yahweh’s house, because they have broken my covenant, and rebelled against my law.

God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart,

Yahweh will strike Egypt, striking and healing. They will return to Yahweh, and he will be entreated by them, and will heal them.

Your elder sister is Samaria, who dwells at your left hand, she and her daughters; and your younger sister, who dwells at your right hand, is Sodom with her daughters.

Again, when I say to the wicked, “You will surely die;” if he turns from his sin, and does that which is lawful and right;

“Come! Let’s return to Yahweh; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.

Therefore turn to your God. Keep kindness and justice, and wait continually for your God.

“I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

If there is found among you, within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight in transgressing his covenant,

Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land, to all the springs of water, and to all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we not lose all the animals.”

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

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

He will not always accuse; neither will he stay angry forever.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

“ ‘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.”

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.

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

“Moreover you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “ ‘Do men fall, and not rise up again? Does one turn away, and not return?

Yahweh said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Hear the words of this covenant, and do them.

Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads.

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.”

I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts:

“Therefore say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”

Samaria hasn’t committed half of your sins; but you have multiplied your abominations more than they, and have justified your sisters by all your abominations which you have done.

Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed, when you receive your sisters, your elder sisters and your younger; and I will give them to you for daughters, but not by your covenant.

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

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says Yahweh of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men?

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate. Then she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.

The king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (also called Zoar) went out; and they set the battle in array against them in the valley of Siddim

When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter.

“When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them,

Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them.

So the couriers went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, and according to the commandment of the king, saying, “You children of Israel, turn again to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant of you that have escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria.

He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity.

A remnant will return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant.

From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous! But I said, “I pine away! I pine away! woe is me!” The treacherous have dealt treacherously. Yes, the treacherous have dealt very treacherously.

Yes, you didn’t hear. Yes, you didn’t know. Yes, from of old your ear was not opened, for I knew that you dealt very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.

Don’t be furious, Yahweh. Don’t remember iniquity forever. Look and see, we beg you, we are all your people.

“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.

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;

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,” says Yahweh.

Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says Yahweh.

and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith, and proclaim there the words that I will tell you.

In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

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.

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment. No hands were laid on her.

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your portion, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd way.

Her daughters who are in the field will be slain with the sword. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’

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.’

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

But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this.

“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused.

Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin.

So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

“I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

“All this is for the disobedience of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the disobedience of Jacob? Isn’t it Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Aren’t they Jerusalem?

Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.

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

Don’t you be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: Yahweh of Armies says, ‘Return now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings;’ but they didn’t hear, nor listen to me, says Yahweh.

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come.

not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord.

that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way;

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lamp stand out of its place, unless you repent.

Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.