‘If a man sends his wife away,
    she may leave him and marry another man.
Then her first husband may not take her as his wife again.
    That would be a sin against the land where you live.^[a]
But you have left me to live with other gods.
You have lived like a prostitute,
    but you still think that you can return to me.
² Look up at the tops of the hills.
    You have loved other gods on all of them!
You sat by the side of the road,
    and you waited for a lover to come.
Like a robber, you waited to catch men
    so that you could sleep with them.
You have not been faithful to me,
    but you have looked for other gods, like a prostitute.
The wicked things that you have done
    have made the land unclean.
³ That is why I have not sent any rain on your land.
    Even the spring rains have not come.
But you still live like a proud prostitute.

⁴ You still call me your Father.
You say, “You have always been my friend.
    You have loved me all my life.
⁵ Surely you will not always be angry with me!
    You cannot continue to be angry for ever.”
Those are the things that you say.
    But you continue to do as many evil things as you can.’

“You people of Israel have not been faithful to me.
    But now return to me,” says the Lord.
“I will not always turn away from you.
I am kind and I forgive people.
    I will not be angry with you for ever,” says the Lord.
¹³ “But you must agree that you are guilty of sin.
    You have turned against me, the Lord your God.
You have loved to serve many foreign gods.
    You have worshipped them under every big tree.
You have not obeyed my commands.” ’

“I want you people of Israel to be my children.
    That would make me very happy.
I want to give you a good land as your home.
    It is a more beautiful land than any other nation enjoys.”
I thought that you would call me “Father”.
    I thought that you would always be faithful to me.
²⁰ But you, Israel, have gone away from me,
    like a woman who leaves her husband.
You have not been faithful to me.’
    That is what the Lord says.
²¹ ‘I can hear a noise on the tops of the hills.
    Israel's people are weeping.
    They are calling out for help.
Yes, they have turned to bad ways.
    They have forgotten to serve the Lord their God.
²² Return to me, all of you have turned away.
    I will help you to be faithful to me.

Now you should say,
“Yes, we will return to you,
    because you are the Lord our God.
²³ The false gods that we worship on the hills have deceived us.
    Our wild parties on the mountains have not helped us.
Only the Lord our God can really save Israel.
²⁴ Since we were a young nation,
    we have seen all our good things disappear.
The useless gods that we worshipped have taken them.
    They took away the things that our ancestors worked to get.
They took away our sheep and our cows.
    They even took away our sons and our daughters.
²⁵ We are ashamed to agree that this is true.
    We must accept the shame that we deserve.
We and our ancestors have done bad things
    against the Lord our God.
Since long ago, we have not obeyed him,
    and even today, we still do not listen to him.” ’