Jeremiah 3:11-Jeremiah 4:4 - A Call For Repentance

¹¹ The Lord announced to me, “Unfaithful Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. ¹² Go, proclaim these words to the north, and say:

Return, unfaithful Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will not look on you with anger,
for I am unfailing in My love.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will not be angry forever.
¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You have scattered your favors to strangers
under every green tree
and have not obeyed My voice.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

¹⁴ “Return, you faithless children”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“for I am your master, and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. ¹⁵ I will give you shepherds who are loyal to Me, and they will shepherd you with knowledge and skill. ¹⁶ When you multiply and increase in the land, in those days”—the Lord’s declaration—“no one will say any longer, ‘The ark of the Lord’s covenant.’ It will never come to mind, and no one will remember or miss it. It will never again be made. ¹⁷ At that time Jerusalem will be called, Yahweh’s Throne, and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the name of Yahweh in Jerusalem. They will cease to follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. ¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah will join with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land I have given your ancestors to inherit.”

¹⁹ I thought: How I long to make you My sons
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
I thought: You will call Me, my Father,
and never turn away from Me.
²⁰ However, as a woman may betray her lover,
so you have betrayed Me, house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

²¹ A sound is heard on the barren heights,
the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy,
for they have perverted their way;
they have forgotten the Lord their God.
²² Return, you faithless children.
I will heal your unfaithfulness.
“Here we are, coming to You,
for You are the Lord our God.
²³ Surely, falsehood comes from the hills,
commotion from the mountains,
but the salvation of Israel
is only in the Lord our God.
²⁴ From the time of our youth
the shameful one has consumed
what our fathers have worked for—
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.
²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame;
let our disgrace cover us.
We have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our fathers,
from the time of our youth even to this day.
We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

¹ If you return, Israel—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will return to Me,
if you remove your detestable idols
from My presence
and do not waver,
² then you can swear, “As the Lord lives,”
in truth, in justice, and in righteousness,
then the nations will be blessed by Him
and will pride themselves in Him.

³ For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:

Break up the unplowed ground;
do not sow among the thorns.
⁴ Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
men of Judah and residents of Jerusalem.
Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire
and burn with no one to extinguish it
because of your evil deeds.