Jeremiah 3:22

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. ¹  Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

"Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding." "Yes, we will come to you, for you are the LORD our God.

"Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness." "Behold, we come to You; For You are the LORD our God.

"My wayward children," says the LORD, "come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts." "Yes, we will come," the people reply, "for you are the LORD our God.

"Come back, wandering children! I can heal your wanderlust!" "We're here! We've come back to you. You're our own true GOD!

Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness. "Here we come to you; for you are the LORD our God.

"Return, you backsliding children, And I will heal your backslidings." "Indeed we do come to You, For You are the LORD our God.

Come back to me, you wayward people. I want to cure your waywardness. ¹  Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you because you are the Lord our God.

¹ tn 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.

² tn 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.