Reflections on Jeremiah 3

Jeremiah 03 (Contemporary English Version)
1. The LORD said to the people of Israel: If a divorced woman marries, can her first husband ever marry her again? No, because this would pollute the land. But you have more gods than a prostitute has lovers. Why should I take you back?
   
2. Just try to find one hilltop where you haven't gone to worship other gods by having sex. You sat beside the road like a robber in ambush, except you offered yourself to every passerby. Your sins of unfaithfulness have polluted the land.
   
3. So I, the LORD, refused to let the spring rains fall. But just like a prostitute, you still have no shame for what you have done.
   
4. You call me your father or your long-lost friend;
   
5. you beg me to stop being angry, but you won't stop sinning.
   
6. When Josiah was king, the LORD said: Jeremiah, the kingdom of Israel was like an unfaithful wife who became a prostitute on the hilltops and in the shade of large trees.
   
7. I knew that the kingdom of Israel had been unfaithful and committed many sins, yet I still hoped she might come back to me. But she didn't, so I divorced her and sent her away. Her sister, the kingdom of Judah, saw what happened, but she wasn't worried in the least, and I watched her become unfaithful like her sister.
   
8. (SEE 3:7)
   
9. The kingdom of Judah wasn't sorry for being a prostitute, and she didn't care that she had made both herself and the land unclean by worshiping idols of stone and wood.
   
10. And worst of all, the people of Judah pretended to come back to me.
    
11. Even the people of Israel were honest enough not to pretend.
    
12. Jeremiah, shout toward the north: Israel, I am your LORD-- come back to me! You were unfaithful and made me furious, but I am merciful, and so I will forgive you.
    
13. Just admit that you rebelled and worshiped foreign gods under large trees everywhere.
    
14. You are unfaithful children, but you belong to me. Come home! I'll take one or two of you from each town and clan and bring you to Zion.
    
15. Then I'll appoint wise rulers who will obey me, and they will care for you like shepherds.
    
16. You will increase in numbers, and there will be no need to remember the sacred chest or to make a new one.
    
17. The whole city of Jerusalem will be my throne. All nations will come here to worship me, and they will no longer follow their stubborn, evil hearts.
    
18. Then, in countries to the north, you people of Judah and Israel will be reunited, and you will return to the land I gave your ancestors.
    
19. I have always wanted to treat you as my children and give you the best land, the most beautiful on earth. I wanted you to call me "Father" and not turn from me.
    
20. But instead, you are like a wife who broke her wedding vows. You have been unfaithful to me. I, the LORD, have spoken.
    
21. Listen to the noise on the hilltops! It's the people of Israel, weeping and begging me to answer their prayers. They forgot about me and chose the wrong path.
    
22. I will tell them, "Come back, and I will cure you of your unfaithfulness." They will answer, "We will come back, because you are the LORD our God.
    
23. On hilltops, we worshiped idols and made loud noises, but it was all for nothing-- only you can save us.
    
24. Since the days of our ancestors when our nation was young, that shameful god Baal has taken our crops and livestock, our sons and daughters.
    
25. We have rebelled against you just like our ancestors, and we are ashamed of our sins."

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Judah's guilt is exposed in this chapter as is God's love and mercy. Given Judah's condition, there is little hope of being restored to the Lord. Her situation is compared to a wife whose husband divorced her and she then goes on to marry another. The question is then raised as to whether the former husband can return to her, and the obvious answer is no. According to the law, if a couple divorced and the wife married another man, she was prohibited from reuniting with her first husband. This is a picture of Judah's relationship with God, and she needed to know that she couldn't sin and expect to return to the Lord at any time she decided or when she needed something from Him.

Already God had withheld rain from Judah because of her sin and she had not been repentant. Furthermore, Judah had watched as God gave her sister, Israel, a "certificate of divorce" because of her spiritual adultery, yet "her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid but also went and prostituted herself." (3:8) Israel's 'certificate of divorce' was a reference to her destruction by Assyria. God considered Judah a worse case than Israel. She had sufficient opportunity to see the error of her ways and yet she had not turned from them. Oh, she gave a pretense of returning to the Lord, but she didn't return "with all her heart." (3:10) We turn away from God because we have forgotten who He is. He is the creator of the universe who has made us and is the source of all we have. He is all-knowing and all-seeing and there is nothing that is beyond His awareness. Yet we play our religious games as if to win His favor, and the only one who is fooled by them is ourselves.

Inspite of Judah's hardness of heart, however, God promised to pardon her if she would return, irregardless of his divorce from her. God's love and mercy is greater than the law. In verse 12 God pleads with both Israel and Judah to return to Him. In so doing, He says, "I will not look on you with anger, for I am unfailing in My love. This is the LORD's declaration. I will not be angry forever." The only condition for God's forgiveness and mercy was that they "acknowledge your guilt." (3:13) God promises not only to receive back the two sisters if they will return, He promises a return to His original relationship with them. He will bless them and they will prosper. The two nations will reunite and Jerusalem will become "The Lord's Throne." (3:17)

Our reading of God's relationship with Israel can be viewed in terms of our own personal relationship with God. He desires an intimate relationship with each of us. But we are not unlike Israel. We turn away from the Lord and are unfaithful to Him. Nevertheless, as with Israel, God desires to restore the relationship and to bless us.