The Lord said to me, ¹  “Tell them, ‘The Lord says, Do people not get back up when they fall down? Do they not turn around when they go the wrong way? ² 

Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem ¹  continually turn away from me in apostasy? They hold fast to their deception. ²  They refuse to turn back to me. ³ 

But after I have uprooted the people of those nations, I will relent ¹  and have pity on them. I will restore the people of each of those nations to their own lands ²  and to their own country.

You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!” ¹ 

Because of this, the Lord said, ¹  “You must repent of such words and thoughts! If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ²  If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless, I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ³  They must become as you have been. You must not become like them. ⁴ 

Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. ¹  But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. ² 

“If you, Israel, want to come back,” says the Lord, “if you want to come back to me ¹  you must get those disgusting idols ²  out of my sight and must no longer go astray. ³ 

I have indeed ¹  heard the people of Israel ²  say mournfully, ‘We were like a calf untrained to the yoke. ³  You disciplined us and we learned from it. ⁴  Let us come back to you and we will do so, ⁵  for you are the Lord our God.

I will say, ¹  ‘My dear children of Israel, ²  keep in mind the road you took when you were carried off. ³  Mark off in your minds the landmarks. Make a mental note of telltale signs marking the way back. Return, my dear children of Israel. Return to these cities of yours.

But later ¹  they had changed their minds. They had taken back their male and female slaves that they had freed and forced them to be slaves again. ² 

Indeed, there is hope for your posterity. ¹  Your children will return to their own territory. I, the Lord, affirm it! ² 

None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah. Though they long to return and live there, none of them shall return except a few fugitives.’” ¹ 

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.

The Lord continued, ¹  “In every town in the land I will purge them like straw blown away by the wind. ²  I will destroy my people. I will kill off their children. I will do so because they did not change their behavior. ³ 

But if they had stood in my inner circle, ¹  they would have proclaimed my message to my people. They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

I will restore Judah and Israel ¹  and will rebuild them as they were in days of old. ² 

Then the Babylonian forces ¹  will return. They will attack the city and will capture it and burn it down.

I will have compassion on you so that he in turn will have mercy on you and allow you to return to your land.’

But the people of Jerusalem and Judah ¹  would not listen or pay any attention. They would not stop the wickedness they were doing nor quit sacrificing to other gods. ² 

Yet in days to come I will reverse Moab’s ill fortune.” ¹  says the Lord. ²  The judgment against Moab ends here.