1. If a man divorces his wifeand she leaves himand then becomes the wife of another,Can she return to the first?Would not this land be wholly defiled?But you have played the prostitute with many lovers,and yet you would return to me!—oracle of the Lord.
2. Raise your eyes to the heights, and look,where have men not lain with you?Along the roadways you waited for themlike an Arabian in the wilderness.You defiled the landby your wicked prostitution.
3. Therefore the showers were withheld,the spring rain did not fall.But because you have a prostitute’s brow,you refused to be ashamed.
4. Even now do you not call me, “My father,you are the bridegroom of my youth?
5. Will he keep his wrath forever,will he hold his grudge to the end?”This is what you say; yet you doall the evil you can.
6. The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Do you see what rebellious Israel has done? She has gone up every high mountain, and under every green tree she has played the prostitute.
7. And I thought: After she has done all this, she will return to me. But she did not return. Then, even though that traitor her sister Judah, saw