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They have forgotten the Lord their God.

 

²²Return, ye backsliding children,

I will heal your backslidings.—

'Here we are, we are come unto Thee;

For Thou art the Lord our God.

²³Truly vain have proved the hills,

The uproar on the mountains;

Truly in the Lord our God

Is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴But the shameful thing hath devoured

The labour of our fathers from our youth;

Their flocks and their herds,

Their sons and their daughters.

²⁵Let us lie down in our shame,

And let our confusion cover us;

For we have sinned against the Lord our God,

We and our fathers,

From our youth even unto this day;

And we have not hearkened

To the voice of the Lord our God.'

 

4If thou wilt return, O Israel,

Saith the Lord,

Yea, return unto Me;

And if thou wilt put away thy detestable things out of My sight,

And wilt not waver;

²And wilt swear: 'As the Lord liveth'

In truth, in justice, and in righteousness;

Then shall the nations bless themselves by Him,

And in Him shall they glory.

 

³For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem:

Break up for you a fallow ground,

And sow not among thorns.

⁴Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,

And take away the foreskins of your heart,

Ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;

Lest My fury go forth like fire,

And burn that none can quench it,

Because of the evil of your doings.

 

⁵Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem,

And say: 'Blow ye the horn in the land';

Cry aloud and say:

'Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.'

⁶Set up a standard toward Zion;

Put yourselves under covert, stay not;

For I will bring evil from the north,

And a great destruction.

⁷A lion is gone up from his thicket,

And a destroyer of nations

Is set out, gone forth from his place;

To make thy land desolate,

That thy cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

⁸For this gird you with sackcloth,

Lament and wail;

For the fierce anger of the Lord

Is not turned back from us.

⁹And it shall come to pass at that day,

Saith the Lord,

That the heart of the king shall fail,

And the heart of the princes;

And the priests shall be astonished,

And the prophets shall wonder.

¹⁰Then said I: 'Ah, Lord God! surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.'

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