Jeremiah 3-4 - Wash Your Heart From Evil

From today's Bible reading:

Jeremiah 3:

If a man divorces his wife
and she goes from him
and becomes another man's wife,
will he return to her?

Would not that land be greatly polluted?

You have played the whore with many lovers;
and would you return to me?
declares the LORD.

You have polluted the land
with your vile whoredom.

Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and the spring rain has not come;
yet you have the forehead of a whore;
you refuse to be ashamed.

Return, faithless Israel,
declares the LORD.

I will not look on you in anger,
for I am merciful,
declares the LORD;
I will not be angry forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt,
that you rebelled against the LORD your God
and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree,
and that you have not obeyed my voice,
declares the LORD.

Return, O faithless children,
declares the LORD;
for I am your master;
I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.

And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, declares the LORD, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.

At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.

I said,
How I would set you among my sons,
and give you a pleasant land,
a heritage most beautiful of all nations.
And I thought you would call me, My Father,
and would not turn from following me.
Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband,
so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel,
declares the LORD.

But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

Jeremiah 4:

If you return, O Israel, declares the LORD, to me you should return.
If you remove your detestable things from my presence,
and do not waver,
and if you swear, As the LORD lives,
in truth, in justice, and in righteousness,
then nations shall bless themselves in him,
and in him shall they glory.

For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:

Break up your fallow ground,
and sow not among thorns.
Circumcise yourselves to the LORD;
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;
lest my wrath go forth like fire,
and burn with none to quench it,
because of the evil of your deeds.

Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say,

Blow the trumpet through the land;
cry aloud and say,
‘Assemble, and let us go
into the fortified cities!’

Raise a standard toward Zion,
flee for safety, stay not,
for I bring disaster from the north,
and great destruction.

A lion has gone up from his thicket,
a destroyer of nations has set out;
he has gone out from his place
to make your land a waste;
your cities will be ruins
without inhabitant.

For this put on sackcloth,
lament and wail,
for the fierce anger of the LORD
has not turned back from us.

Behold, he comes up like clouds;
his chariots like the whirlwind;
his horses are swifter than eagles—
woe to us, for we are ruined!

O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved.

How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?

Besiegers come from a distant land;
they shout against the cities of Judah.

Like keepers of a field are they against her all around,
because she has rebelled against me,
declares the LORD.

Your ways and your deeds
have brought this upon you.

This is your doom, and it is bitter;
it has reached your very heart.

(The very center of who you are--exactly where God intended to reach us.)

My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!
Oh the walls of my heart!
My heart is beating wildly;
I cannot keep silent,
for I hear the sound of the trumpet,
the alarm of war.

Crash follows hard on crash;
the whole land is laid waste.

Suddenly my tents are laid waste,
my curtains in a moment.

How long must I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,
and all the hills moved to and fro.

I looked, and behold, there was no man,
and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins
before the LORD, before his fierce anger.

For thus says the LORD, The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

For this the earth shall mourn,
and the heavens above be dark;
for I have spoken; I have purposed;
I have not relented, nor will I turn back.

At the noise of horseman and archer
every city takes to flight;
they enter thickets; they climb among rocks;
all the cities are forsaken,
and no man dwells in them.

And you, O desolate one,
what do you mean that you dress in scarlet,
that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold,
that you enlarge your eyes with paint?

(Why all the makeup in the midst of disaster?)

In vain you beautify yourself.
Your lovers despise you;
they seek your life.

For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor,
anguish as of one giving birth to her first child,
the cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath,
stretching out her hands,
Woe is me! I am fainting before murderers.