Jeremiah 3:11

3:11 Then the Lord said to me, “Under the circumstances, wayward Israel could even be considered less guilty than unfaithful Judah.¹

Jeremiah 3:22

3:22 Come back to me, you wayward people.

I want to cure your waywardness.²

Say,³ ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

Jeremiah 3:6

3:6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done.⁴ You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods.⁵

Jeremiah 3:8

3:8 She also saw⁶ that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods.⁷ Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this,⁸ she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods.⁹

Jeremiah 3:12

The Lord Calls on Israel and Judah to Repent

3:12 “Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north.¹⁰ Tell them,

‘Come back to me, wayward Israel,’ says the Lord.

‘I will not continue to look on you with displeasure.¹¹

For I am merciful,’ says the Lord.

‘I will not be angry with you forever.

Jeremiah 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master.¹² If you do,¹³ I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Jeremiah 8:6

8:6 I have listened to them very carefully,¹⁴

but they do not speak honestly.

None of them regrets the evil he has done.

None of them says, “I have done wrong!”¹⁵

All of them persist in their own wayward course¹⁶

like a horse charging recklessly into battle.

¹tn Heb “Wayward Israel has proven herself to be more righteous than unfaithful Judah.”

sn A comparison is drawn here between the greater culpability of Judah, who has had the advantage of seeing how God disciplined her sister nation for having sinned and yet ignored the warning and committed the same sin, and the culpability of Israel who had no such advantage.

²tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafa’) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness see Hos 14:4.

³tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether these are the response of the people to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether these are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance to which he adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it in 4:1-4. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4:4 while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. This disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.

⁴tn “Have you seen…” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

⁵tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

⁶tc Heb “she [‘her sister, unfaithful Judah’ from the preceding verse] saw” with one Hebrew ms, some Greek mss, and the Syriac version. The MT reads “I saw” which may be a case of attraction to the verb at the beginning of the previous verse.

⁷tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.

⁸tn The words “Even after her unfaithful sister, Judah, had seen this” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit in the connection and are supplied for clarification.

⁹tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

¹⁰tn Heb “Go and proclaim these words to the north.” The translation assumes that the message is directed toward the exiles of northern Israel who have been scattered in the provinces of Assyria to the north.

¹¹tn Heb “I will not cause my face to fall on you.”

¹²tn Or “I am your true husband.”

sn There is a wordplay between the term “true master” and the name of the pagan god Baal. The pronoun “I” is emphatic, creating a contrast between the Lord as Israel’s true master/husband versus Baal as Israel’s illegitimate lover/master. See 2:23-25.

¹³tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

¹⁴tn Heb “I have paid attention and I have listened.” This is another case of two concepts being joined by “and” where one expresses the main idea and the other acts as an adverbial or adjectival modifier (a figure called hendiadys).

¹⁵tn Heb “What have I done?” The addition of the word “wrong” is implicit in the context and is supplied in the translation for clarity. The rhetorical question does not function as a denial of wrongdoing, but rather as contrite shock at one’s own wrongdoing. It is translated as a declaration for the sake of clarity.

¹⁶tn Heb “each one of them turns aside into their own running course.”

sn The wordplay begun in v. 4 is continued here. The word translated “turns aside” in the literal translation and “wayward” in the translation is from the same root as “go the wrong way,” “turn around,” “turn away from me,” “apostasy,” “turn back to me.” What God hoped for were confessions of repentance and change of behavior; what he got was denial of wrongdoing and continued turning away from him.