Jeremiah 3:1

¹When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house. ²When she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. ³If the latter husband hates her, and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife; ⁴her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an abomination to the LORD. You shall not cause the land to sin, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.

²⁶You have also committed sexual immorality with the Egyptians, your neighbors, great of flesh; and have multiplied your prostitution, to provoke me to anger.

²⁸You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren’t satisfied. ²⁹You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren’t satisfied with this.

²⁰“For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

⁵For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ ⁶Therefore behold, ^[+] I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way. ⁷She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.’

⁴Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

⁵“Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine. She doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors, ⁶who were clothed with blue—governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. ⁷She gave herself as a prostitute to them, all of them the choicest men of Assyria. She defiled herself with the idols of whomever she lusted after. ⁸She hasn’t left her prostitution since leaving Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her. They caressed her youthful nipples and they poured out their prostitution on her.

⁹“Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians on whom she doted. ¹⁰These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.

¹¹“Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet she was more corrupt in her lusting than she, and in her prostitution which was more depraved than the prostitution of her sister. ¹²She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and rulers—her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. ¹³I saw that she was defiled. They both went the same way.

¹⁴“She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with red, ¹⁵dressed with belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like princes, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. ¹⁶As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them into Chaldea. ¹⁷The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution. She was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them. ¹⁸So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister. ¹⁹Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. ²⁰She lusted after their lovers, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. ²¹Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the caressing of your nipples by the Egyptians because of your youthful breasts.

²²“Therefore, Oholibah, the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side: ²³the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, governors and rulers, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. ²⁴They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples. They will set themselves against you with buckler, shield, and helmet all around. I will commit the judgment to them, and they will judge you according to their judgments. ²⁵I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire. ²⁶They will also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels. ²⁷Thus I will make your lewdness to cease from you, and remove your prostitution from the land of Egypt, so that you will not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.’

²⁸“For the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated. ²⁹They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labor, and will leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution. ³⁰These things will be done to you because you have played the prostitute after the nations, and because you are polluted with their idols. ³¹You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand.’

³²“The Lord GOD says: ‘You will drink of your sister’s cup, which is deep and large. You will be ridiculed and held in derision. It contains much. ³³You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria. ³⁴You will even drink it and drain it out. You will gnaw the broken pieces of it, and will tear your breasts; for I have spoken it,’ says the Lord GOD.

³⁵“Therefore the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’”

³⁶The LORD said moreover to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations. ³⁷For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured. ³⁸Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths. ³⁹For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, they have done this in the middle of my house.

⁴⁰“Furthermore you sisters have sent for men who come from far away, to whom a messenger was sent, and behold, they came; for whom you washed yourself, painted your eyes, decorated yourself with ornaments, ⁴¹and sat on a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon you set my incense and my oil.

⁴²“The voice of a multitude being at ease was with her. With men of the common sort were brought drunkards from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on their hands, and beautiful crowns on their heads. ⁴³Then I said of her who was old in adulteries, ‘Now they will play the prostitute with her, and she with them.’ ⁴⁴They went in to her, as they go in to a prostitute. So they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, the lewd women. ⁴⁵Righteous men will judge them with the judgment of adulteresses and with the judgment of women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

⁴⁶“For the Lord GOD says: ‘I will bring up a mob against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed. ⁴⁷The company will stone them with stones and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

⁴⁸“‘Thus I will cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to be lewd like you. ⁴⁹They will recompense your lewdness on you, and you will bear the sins of your idols. Then you will know that I am the Lord GOD.’”

¹“If you will return, Israel,” says the LORD, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed;

¹Israel, return to the LORD your God; for you have fallen because of your sin. ²Take words with you, and return to the LORD. Tell him, “Forgive all our sins, and accept that which is good; so we offer bulls as we vowed of our lips. ³Assyria can’t save us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, ‘Our gods!’ for in you the fatherless finds mercy.” ⁴“I will heal their waywardness. I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from them.

²⁹But from there you shall seek the LORD your God, and you will find him when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to the LORD your God and listen to his voice. ³¹For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.

¹¹Tell them, ‘“As I live,” says the Lord GOD, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why will you die, house of Israel?”’