{Hebrew: Saying.}They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, will he return unto her again? will not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; {Or, and thinkest thou to return &c?}yet return again to me, saith Jehovah.
Lift up thine eyes unto the bare heights, and see; where hast thou not been lain with? By the ways hast thou sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; yet thou hast a harlot's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.
Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the {Or, companion}guide of my youth?
Will he retain his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou {Or, hast spoken thus, but hast done &c.}hast spoken and hast done evil things, and hast {Hebrew: been able.}had thy way.
Moreover Jehovah said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
{Or, And I said, After she hath done all these things, she &c.}And I said after she had done all these things, {Or, Let her return unto me}She will return unto me; but she returned not: and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
And I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorcement, yet treacherous Judah her sister feared not; but she also went and played the harlot.
And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not returned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith Jehovah.
And Jehovah said unto me, Backsliding Israel hath showed herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.
Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah; I will not {Hebrew: cause my countenance to fall upon you.}look in anger upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah, I will not keep anger for ever.
Only {Or, know}acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith Jehovah.
Return, O backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
And it shall come to pass, when ye are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith Jehovah, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of Jehovah; neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they {Or, visit}miss it; neither {Or, shall that be done any more}shall it be made any more.
At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Jehovah; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of Jehovah, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
In those days the house of Judah shall walk {Or, to}with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance unto your fathers.
But I said, How {Or, shall I…nations?}I will put thee among the children, and give thee {Or, the goodliest heritage of the nations}a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of the nations! and I said, {Another reading is, Thou shalt…and shalt not &c.}Ye shall call me My Father, and shall not turn away from following me.
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith Jehovah.
A voice is heard upon the bare heights, the weeping and the supplications of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Jehovah their God.
Return, ye backsliding children, I will heal your backslidings.
Behold, we are come unto thee; for thou art Jehovah our God.
Truly in vain is the help that is looked for from the hills, the {Or, noisy throng}tumult on the mountains: truly in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel.
But the {Hebrew: shame. See chapter 11:13; Hosea 9:10}shameful thing hath devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.
Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; for we have sinned against Jehovah our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God.
Querverweise zu Jeremia 3,1 Jer 3,1
When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.
And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife;
her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before Jehovah: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
For of old time {Or, thou hast}I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bonds; and thou saidst, I will not {Another reading is, transgress.}serve; for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou didst bow thyself, playing the harlot.
Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah; I will not {Hebrew: cause my countenance to fall upon you.}look in anger upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah, I will not keep anger for ever.
Only {Or, know}acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith Jehovah.
Return, O backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
And I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.
How canst thou say, I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift {Or, young camel}dromedary traversing her ways;
Return, ye backsliding children, I will heal your backslidings.Behold, we are come unto thee; for thou art Jehovah our God.
Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you;
and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants.
Ye therefore shall keep my statutes and mine ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the home-born, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you;
(for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land is defiled);
that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house: so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee.
If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith Jehovah, if thou wilt return unto me, and {Or, if thou wilt put…and will not wander, and wilt swear…then shall the nations &c. or, then shalt thou swear…and the nations &c.}if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight; then shalt thou not be removed;
The earth also is polluted under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.
And his concubine played the harlot against him, and went away from him unto her father's house to Beth-lehem-judah, and was there the space of four months.
O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?
Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your resting-place; because of uncleanness that destroyeth, even with a grievous destruction.
Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians, thy neighbors, great of flesh; and hast multiplied thy whoredom, to provoke me to anger.
Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return?
Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.
I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one {Or, turneth away in his course}turneth to his course, as a horse that rusheth headlong in the battle.
Thou hast played the harlot also with the Assyrians, because thou wast insatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet thou wast not satisfied.
But from thence ye shall seek Jehovah thy God, and thou shalt find him, when thou searchest after him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, {Or, if in the latter days thou return}in the latter days thou shalt return to Jehovah thy God, and hearken unto his voice:
for Jehovah thy God is a merciful God; he will not fail thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
Thou hast moreover multiplied thy whoredom unto the land of {Or, Canaan}traffic, unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.
Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near:
let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
And the names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bare sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is {That is, Her tent.}Oholah, and Jerusalem {That is, My tent is in her.}Oholibah.
And Oholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,
who were clothed with blue, governors and {Or, deputies See Jeremiah 51:23, &c.}rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
And she bestowed her whoredoms upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whomsoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.
Neither hath she left her whoredoms {Or, brought from Egypt}since the days of Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their whoredom upon her.
Wherefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted.
These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they slew with the sword: and she became a {Hebrew: name.}byword among women; for they executed judgments upon her.
And her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her whoredoms which were more than the whoredoms of her sister.
She doted upon the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.
And I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.
And she increased her whoredoms; for she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,
girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans upon their heads, all of them princes to look upon, after the likeness of the Babylonians in {Or, the land of whose nativity is Chaldea}Chaldea, the land of their nativity.
And {Hebrew: at the sight of her eyes.}as soon as she saw them she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them into Chaldea.
And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
So she uncovered her whoredoms, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.
Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, remembering the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
And she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy bosom by the Egyptians for the breasts of thy youth.
Therefore, O Oholibah, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy soul is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side:
the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; desirable young men, governors and rulers all of them, princes and {Or, counsellors Hebrew: called.}men of renown, all of them riding upon horses.
And they shall come against thee with weapons, chariots, and {Or, wheels}wagons, and with a company of peoples; they shall set themselves against thee with buckler and shield and helmet round about; and I will commit the judgment unto them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.
And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal with thee in fury; they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy residue shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.
They shall also strip thee of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels.
Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt; so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy soul is alienated;
and they shall deal with thee in hatred, and shall take away all thy labor, and shall leave thee naked and bare; and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be uncovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
These things shall be done unto thee, for that thou hast played the harlot after the nations, and because thou art polluted with their idols.
Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore will I give her cup into thy hand.
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup, which is deep and large; thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; {Or, to much to endure}it containeth much.
Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.
Thou shalt even drink it and drain it out, and thou shalt gnaw the sherds thereof, and shalt tear thy breasts; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
Jehovah said moreover unto me: Son of man, wilt thou judge Oholah and Oholibah? then declare unto them their abominations.
For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass through the fire unto them to be devoured.
Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths.
For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of my house.
And furthermore ye have sent for men {Or, to come}that come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent, and, lo, they came; for whom thou didst wash thyself, paint thine eyes, and deck thyself with ornaments,
and sit upon a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon thou didst set mine incense and mine oil.
And the voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with men of the common sort were brought drunkards from the wilderness; and they put bracelets upon the hands of them twain, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.
Then said I {Or, She that is old will commit adulteries}of her that was old in adulteries, Now will they play {Hebrew: her whoredoms.}the harlot with her, {Or, even with her}and she with them.
And they went in unto her, as they go in unto a harlot: so went they in unto Oholah and unto Oholibah, the lewd women.
And righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will bring up a company against them, and will give them to be tossed to and fro and robbed.
And the company shall stone them with stones, and despatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.
Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.
And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; and ye shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah.
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
When Jehovah spake at the first {Or, with}by Hosea, Jehovah said unto Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredom and children of whoredom; for the land doth commit great whoredom, departing from Jehovah.
O Israel, return unto Jehovah thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
Take with you words, and return unto Jehovah: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and {Or, receive us graciously}accept that which is good: so will we render as bullocks the offering of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods; for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him.
for their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my {Hebrew: drinks.}drink.
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she shall not find her paths.
And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.
Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Return unto me, saith Jehovah of hosts, and I will return unto you, saith Jehovah of hosts.
And he would fain {Many ancient authorities read have been filled.}have filled his belly with {Greek: the pods of the carob tree.}the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!
I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight:
I am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
And he arose, and came to his father. But while he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and {Greek: kissed him much. See chapter 7:38, 45.}kissed him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son {Some ancient authorities add make me as one of thy hired servants. See verse 19.}.
But the father said to his {Greek: bondservants.}servants, Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
and bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and make merry:
for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.