Here’s what YAHWEH says:
“If a man divorces his wife
and she marries another,
would he return to her again?
Doing that would thoroughly defile the land.
And you, Israel, have prostituted yourself with many lovers,
yet now you want to come back to me?
I, YAHWEH, have spoken.
“Look up to the barren heights and carefully consider:
Is there any place where you have not offered yourself as a prostitute?
You have sat by the roadside waiting for lovers,
sitting like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
Therefore, I have withheld the rains,
and the spring showers have not come.
Yet, there you sit with the shameless, brazen look of a prostitute
who refuses to blush.
And yet you have the nerve to say to me,
‘Father! You’ve been my trusted companion as long as I’ve lived.
Surely, you won’t hold a grudge against me forever, right?
You won’t always be angry with me, will you?’
This is only what you say,
but you keep on doing all the evil you can get away with!”
During Josiah’s reign as king of Judah, YAHWEH asked me, “Did you see what unfaithful Israel has done? Like an adulterous wife, she has turned away from me. In every high place and under every green tree, she has prostituted herself to worship other gods. I thought that after all she had done, she would return to me, but she did not return. Meanwhile her treacherous sister, Judah, looked on. She saw me give unfaithful Israel her divorce papers and send her away because of her continued adultery. Her treacherous sister, Judah, likewise had no fear; she, too, acted like a prostitute. Her infidelity mattered little to her. She polluted the land and committed adultery by worshiping idolatrous stone and wood pillars. Even after all this, Israel’s treacherous sister, Judah, refused to return to me with her whole heart; instead, she came with only deceitful lies,” declared YAHWEH.
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