Jeremiah 3:2-4

The Voice

²    Look up to the hilltops. Take a good look.
        Is there anywhere you have not committed perverse acts in the company of other gods?
    You sat on the side of the road, offering yourself to lovers;
        like a desert nomad you waited, patiently.
    Even the land itself is tainted by your prostitution and wickedness.

From the beginning, the covenant between God and His people is clear. They are to worship and trust Him alone. They are to remain true to His teachings. So when God sees His people worshiping idols made of stone and wood, when He sees them participating in demeaning sexual practices with prostitutes as part of local fertility rites, it is too much. The people of Judah have been unfaithful in nearly every way imaginable. They have witnessed what happened to the adulterous Northern Kingdom of Israel. But somehow, these stubborn people think they are special, even immune to such disaster. They think if they say the right prayers in the right ways to the right God from time to time, then all the blatant violations of God’s covenant will be ignored. The prophet Jeremiah sees it all differently.

God will send out a message to the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, which He still calls Israel. For decades, those people have been scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire to the north, while their land has been under enemy occupation. But despite the tribes’ faithlessness, these many years later, the God of mercy offers to restore them. In the midst of divine judgment, God utters words of hope; but this hope, this restoration, is only found in true repentance.

³    That is why I have held back the rain,
        why the spring rains have not come.
    But you still look and act the part of a prostitute—
        unfazed, unashamed.
⁴    But wait, did you just now call out to Me, saying,
        “My Father, You have been my friend, my confidant since I was young”?