Jeremiah 3:6-18

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

A Call to Repentance

⁶ The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and prostituted herself there?^{(A) 7} And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me,” but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it.^{(B) 8} She^[a] saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce, yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she also went and prostituted herself.^{(C) 9} Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.^{(D) 10} Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart but only in pretense, says the Lord.^(E)

¹¹ Then the Lord said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah.^{(F) 12} Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:

¹⁵ I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.^{(J) 16} And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, they shall no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed, nor shall another one be made.^{(K) 17} At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will.^{(L) 18} In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.^(M)