Jeremiah 3:1-2

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again. ¹ 

Doing that would utterly defile the land. ² 

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ³ 

So what makes you think you can return to me?” ⁴ 

says the Lord.

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ⁵ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ⁶ 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ⁷ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 3:8-10

3:8 She also saw ⁹  that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. ¹⁰  Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, ¹¹  she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods. ¹²  3:9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land ¹³  through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone. ¹⁴  3:10 In spite of all this, ¹⁵  Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” ¹⁶  says the Lord.

¹ tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

² tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

³ tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”

⁴ tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.

⁵ tn Heb “and see.”

⁶ tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

⁷ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

⁸ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

⁹ tc 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.

¹⁰ tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.

¹¹ tn 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.

¹² tn 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.

¹³ tc The translation reads the form as a causative (Hiphil, תַּהֲנֵף, tahanef) with some of the versions in place of the simple stative (Qal, תֶּחֱנַף, tekhenaf) in the MT.

¹⁴ tn Heb “because of the lightness of her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “And even in all this.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “ has not turned back to me with all her heart but only in falsehood.”