"When a man divorces his wife, she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, will the first husband return to her again? The land would be deeply polluted, would it not? Since you have committed fornication with many lovers, would you now return to me?" declares the LORD.

"Return, unfaithful people," declares the LORD, "for I am your husband. I'll take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I'll bring you to Zion.

Instead, like an unfaithful wife leaves her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, house of Israel," declares the LORD.

I'm full of the wrath of the LORD, and I'm tired of holding it back. Pour it out on the children in the street and on the groups of young men gathered together. Indeed, both husband and wife will be caught in it, the old and the very old.

It won't be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke my covenant, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.