Jeremiah 3:22

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.

Jeremiah 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ³  If you do, ⁴  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 50:6

50:6 “My people have been lost sheep.

Their shepherds ⁵  have allow them to go astray.

They have wandered around in the mountains.

They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. ⁶ 

They have forgotten their resting place.

[3:22]  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.

[3:22]  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.

[3:14]  ³ tn Or “I am your true husband.”

[3:14]  ⁴ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

[50:6]  ⁵ sn The shepherds are the priests, prophets, and leaders who have led Israel into idolatry (2:8).

[50:6]  ⁶ sn The allusion here, if it is not merely a part of the metaphor of the wandering sheep, is to the worship of the false gods on the high hills (2:20, 3:2).