Jeremiah 3:1

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.

Jeremiah 3:22

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

I want to cure your waywardness. ⁵ 

Say, ⁶  ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

Jeremiah 4:1

4:1 “If you, Israel, want to come back,” says the Lord,

“if you want to come back to me ⁷ 

you must get those disgusting idols ⁸  out of my sight

and must no longer go astray. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 23:14

23:14 But I see the prophets of Jerusalem ¹⁰ 

doing something just as shocking.

They are unfaithful to me

and continually prophesy lies. ¹¹ 

So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil,

with the result that they do not stop their evildoing. ¹² 

I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom,

and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 36:3

36:3 Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. ¹⁴  If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done.” ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 36:1

Jehoiakim Burns the Scroll Containing the Lord’s Messages

36:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah in the fourth year ¹⁶  that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 8:1

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ¹⁸  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.

Isaiah 44:22

44:22 I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud,

the guilt of your sins as if they were a cloud. ¹⁹ 

Come back to me, for I protect ²⁰  you.”

Isaiah 55:7

55:7 The wicked need to abandon their lifestyle ²¹ 

and sinful people their plans. ²² 

They should return ²³  to the Lord, and he will show mercy to them, ²⁴ 

and to their God, for he will freely forgive them. ²⁵ 

Ezekiel 18:23

18:23 Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked, declares the sovereign Lord? Do I not prefer that he turn from his wicked conduct and live?

Hosea 6:1

Superficial Repentance Breeds False Assurance of God’s Forgiveness

6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!

He himself has torn us to pieces,

but he will heal us!

He has injured ²⁶  us,

but he will bandage our wounds!

Hosea 7:10

7:10 The arrogance of Israel testifies against him,

yet they refuse to return to the Lord their God!

In spite of all this they refuse to seek him!

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 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ tn Or “If you, Israel, want to turn [away from your shameful ways (those described in 3:23-25)]…then you must turn back to me.” Or perhaps, “Israel, you must turn back…Yes, you must turn back to me.”

⁸ tn Heb “disgusting things.”

⁹ tn Or possibly, “If you get those disgusting idols out of my sight, you will not need to flee.” This is less probable because the normal meaning of the last verb is “to wander,” “ to stray.”

¹⁰ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹¹ tn Or “they commit adultery and deal falsely.” The word “shocking” only occurs here and in 5:30 where it is found in the context of prophesying lies. This almost assures that the reference to “walking in lies” (Heb “in the lie”) is referring to false prophesy. Moreover the references to the prophets in 5:13 and in 14:13-15 are all in the context of false prophesy as are the following references in this chapter in 23:24, 26, 32 and in 28:15. This appears to be the theme of this section. This also makes it likely that the reference to adultery is not literal adultery, though two of the false prophets in Babylon were guilty of this (29:23). The reference to “encouraging those who do evil” that follows also makes more sense if they were preaching messages of comfort rather than messages of doom. The verbs here are infinitive absolutes in place of the finite verb, probably used to place greater emphasis on the action (cf. Hos 4:2 in a comparable judgment speech.)

¹² tn Heb “So they strengthen the hands of those doing evil so that they do not turn back from their evil.” For the use of the figure “strengthen the hands” meaning “encourage” see Judg 9:24; Ezek 13:22 (and cf. BDB 304 s.v. חָזַק Piel.2). The vav consecutive on the front of the form gives the logical consequence equivalent to “so” in the translation.

¹³ tn Heb “All of them are to me like Sodom and its [Jerusalem’s] inhabitants like Gomorrah.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “their iniquity and their sin.”

¹⁶ sn The fourth year that Jehoiakim…was ruling over Judah would have been 605/4 b.c. Jehoiakim began his rule in 609/8 b.c. after his father Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo. Necho had installed him as puppet king in place of his brother Jehoahaz who was deposed by Necho after a reign of only three months (2 Kgs 23:31-35). According to Jer 46:2 that was the year in which Nebuchadnezzar defeated Jehoiakim’s suzerain Necho at Carchemish. That was also the same year that Jerusalem came under attack and submitted to Babylonian control after a brief siege (Dan 1:1; see the study note on 25:1 for the reason for the difference in the dating between Jer 25:1; 36:2 and Dan 1:1). These events confirmed what Jeremiah had been saying about the foe from the north (4:6; 6:1; 15:12) and would have provided the impetus for the hopes that the people would repent if they were reminded about what Jeremiah had been saying.

¹⁷ tn Heb “This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah the king of Judah, saying.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “At that time.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “I blot out like a cloud your rebellious deeds, and like a cloud your sins.” “Rebellious deeds” and “sins” stand by metonymy for the guilt they produce. Both עָב (’av) and עָנָן (’anan) refer to the clouds in the sky. It is tempting for stylistic purposes to translate the second with “fog” or “mist” (cf. NAB, NRSV “cloud…mist”; NIV “cloud…morning mist”; NLT “morning mists…clouds”), but this distinction between the synonyms is unwarranted here. The point of the simile seems to be this: The Lord forgives their sins, causing them to vanish just as clouds disappear from the sky (see Job 7:9; 30:15).

²⁰ tn Heb “redeem.” See the note at 41:14.

²¹ tn Heb “Let the wicked one abandon his way.” The singular is collective.

²² tn Heb “and the man of evil his thoughts.” The singular is collective.

²³ tn Heb “let him return.” The singular is collective, meaning “let them.”

²⁴ tn The imperfect with vav (ו) conjunctive after the jussive indicates purpose/result.

²⁵ sn The appeal and promise of vv. 6-7 echoes the language of Deut 4:25-31; 30:1-10; and 1 Kgs 8:46-53, all of which anticipate the exile and speak of the prerequisites for restoration.

²⁶ tn “has struck”; NRSV “struck down.”