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

Moreover, the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king [of Judah], “Have you seen what that faithless Israel has done—how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there she was a prostitute?

And the Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel has proved herself less guilty than treacherous Judah [a land of renegades].

“How long will you hesitate [to return],
O you faithless and renegade daughter?
For the Lord has created a new thing in the land [of Israel]:
A woman will encompass (tenderly love) a man.”

And I see when (for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery) I have sent her away, and I give the bill of her divorce unto her, that treacherous Judah her sister hath not feared, and goeth and committeth fornication -- she also.

Go, and thou hast proclaimed these words toward the north, and hast said, Turn back, O backsliding Israel, An affirmation of Jehovah! I cause not Mine anger to fall upon you, For I am kind, an affirmation of Jehovah, I watch not to the age.

Turn back, O backsliding sons, An affirmation of Jehovah. For I have ruled over you, And taken you one of a city, and two of a family, And have brought you to Zion,

Wherefore hath this people of Jerusalem Turned back -- a perpetual backsliding? They have kept hold on deceit, They have refused to turn back.

What -- dost thou boast thyself in valleys? Flowed hath thy valley, O backsliding daughter, Who is trusting in her treasures: Who doth come in unto me?

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

Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, [and] their backsliding is increased.