Jeremiah 2:9-Jeremiah 3:5 - The Unfaithfulness Of Contemporary Israel

⁹ Therefore, I will bring a case against you again.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will bring a case against your children’s children.
¹⁰ Cross over to Cyprus and take a look.
Send someone to Kedar and consider carefully;
see if there has ever been anything like this:
¹¹ Has a nation ever exchanged its gods?
(But they were not gods!)
Yet My people have exchanged their Glory
for useless idols.
¹² Be horrified at this, heavens;
be shocked and utterly appalled.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

¹³ For My people have committed a double evil:
They have abandoned Me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

¹⁴ Is Israel a slave?
Was he born into slavery?
Why else has he become a prey?
¹⁵ The young lions have roared at him;
they have roared loudly.
They have laid waste his land.
His cities are in ruins, without inhabitants.
¹⁶ The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have also broken your skull.
¹⁷ Have you not brought this on yourself
by abandoning the Lord your God
while He was leading you along the way?
¹⁸ Now what will you gain
by traveling along the way to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile?
What will you gain
by traveling along the way to Assyria
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
¹⁹ Your own evil will discipline you;
your own apostasies will reprimand you.
Think it over and see how evil and bitter it is
for you to abandon the Lord your God
and to have no fear of Me.
This is the declaration
of the Lord God of Hosts.

²⁰ For long ago I broke your yoke;
I tore off your chains.
You insisted, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill
and under every green tree
you lie down like a prostitute.

²¹ I planted you, a choice vine
from the very best seed.
How then could you turn into
a degenerate, foreign vine?

²² Even if you wash with lye
and use a great amount of soap,
the stain of your sin is still in front of Me.
This is the Lord God’s declaration.
²³ How can you protest, “I am not defiled;
I have not followed the Baals”?
Look at your behavior in the valley;
acknowledge what you have done.
You are a swift young camel
twisting and turning on her way,
²⁴ a wild donkey at home in the wilderness.
She sniffs the wind in the heat of her desire.
Who can control her passion?
All who look for her will not become tired;
they will find her in her mating season.
²⁵ Keep your feet from going bare
and your throat from thirst.
But you say, “It’s hopeless;
I love strangers,
and I will continue to follow them.”

²⁶ Like the shame of a thief when he is caught,
so the house of Israel has been put to shame.
They, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets
²⁷ say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”
For they have turned their back to Me
and not their face,
yet in their time of disaster they beg,
“Rise up and save us!”
²⁸ But where are your gods you made for yourself?
Let them rise up and save you
in your time of disaster if they can,
for your gods are as numerous as your cities, Judah.

²⁹ Why do you bring a case against Me?
All of you have rebelled against Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
³⁰ I have struck down your children in vain;
they would not accept discipline.
Your own sword has devoured your prophets
like a ravaging lion.
³¹ Evil generation,
pay attention to the word of the Lord!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel
or a land of dense darkness?
Why do My people claim,
“We will go where we want;
we will no longer come to You”?
³² Can a young woman forget her jewelry
or a bride her wedding sash?
Yet My people have forgotten Me
for countless days.
³³ How skillfully you pursue love;
you also teach evil women your ways.
³⁴ Moreover, your skirts are stained
with the blood of the innocent poor.
You did not catch them breaking and entering.
But in spite of all these things
³⁵ you claim, “I am innocent.
His anger is sure to turn away from me.”
But I will certainly judge you
because you have said, “I have not sinned.”
³⁶ How unstable you are,
constantly changing your ways!
You will be put to shame by Egypt
just as you were put to shame by Assyria.
³⁷ Moreover, you will be led out from here
with your hands on your head
since the Lord has rejected those you trust;
you will not succeed even with their help.

¹ If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him to marry another,
can he ever return to her?
Wouldn’t such a land become totally defiled?
But you!
You have played the prostitute with many partners—
can you return to Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
² Look to the barren heights and see.
Where have you not been immoral?
You sat waiting for them beside the highways
like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.
³ This is why the showers haven’t come—
why there has been no spring rain.
You have the brazen look of a prostitute
and refuse to be ashamed.
⁴ Have you not lately called to Me, “My Father.
You were my friend in my youth.
⁵ Will He bear a grudge forever?
Will He be endlessly infuriated?”
This is what you have said,
but you have done the evil things
you are capable of.