HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 1037
JER EM IAH 3
page 667
37
In despair, you will be led into exile
with your hands on your heads,
for the Lord has rejected the nations
you trust.
They will not help you at all.
3
2
3
4
5
“If a man divorces a woman
and she goes and marries someone
else,
he will not take her back again,
for that would surely corrupt the land.
But you have prostituted yourself with
many lovers,
so why are you trying to come back
to me?”
says the Lord.
“Look at the shrines on every hilltop.
Is there any place you have not been
defiled
by your adultery with other gods?
You sit like a prostitute beside the road
waiting for a customer.
You sit alone like a nomad in the desert.
You have polluted the land with your
prostitution
and your wickedness.
That’s why even the spring rains have
failed.
For you are a brazen prostitute and
completely shameless.
Yet you say to me,
‘Father, you have been my guide since
my youth.
Surely you won’t be angry forever!
Surely you can forget about it!’
So you talk,
but you keep on doing all the evil
you can.”
Hope for Wayward Israel
11 Then the Lord said to me, “Even faithless
Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah!
12 Therefore, go and give this message to Israel.*
This is what the Lord says:
1
Judah Follows Israel’s Example
6 During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said
to me, “Have you seen what fickle Israel has
done? Like a wife who commits adultery, Israel has worshiped other gods on every hill and
under every green tree. 7 I thought, ‘After she has
done all this, she will return to me.’ But she did
not return, and her faithless sister Judah saw
this. 8 She saw* that I divorced faithless Israel
because of her adultery. But that treacherous
sister Judah had no fear, and now she, too, has
left me and given herself to prostitution. 9 Israel
treated it all so lightly—she thought nothing of
committing adultery by worshiping idols made
of wood and stone. So now the land has been
polluted. 10 But despite all this, her faithless
sister Judah has never sincerely returned to me.
She has only pretended to be sorry. I, the Lord,
have spoken!”
3:8 As in Dead Sea Scrolls, one Greek manuscript, and Syriac
version; Masoretic Text reads I saw. 3:12 Hebrew toward the
north. 3:14 Hebrew to Zion.
13
14
15
“O Israel, my faithless people,
come home to me again,
for I am merciful.
I will not be angry with you forever.
Only acknowledge your guilt.
Admit that you rebelled against the Lord
your God
and committed adultery against him
by worshiping idols under every green tree.
Confess that you refused to listen to my voice.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
“Return home, you wayward children,”
says the Lord,
“for I am your master.
I will bring you back to the land of Israel*—
one from this town and two from that
family—
from wherever you are scattered.
And I will give you shepherds after my
own heart,
who will guide you with knowledge and
understanding.
• Guilt
JE R E M I A H 3:13
Jesus paid a high price—his life—in order
to remove our guilt before a holy God.
While Jesus paid the price only he could
pay, freedom from guilt is costly for us in
other ways. The high price for us is the
difficult task of admitting to God (and
often others) that we were wrong and that
we need forgiveness. This is called confession. As costly as confession is, the
rewards are even greater: peace with ourselves and others, restored relationships,
the removal of sin, and a renewed
relationship with God.
But pride is a powerful force in our
lives. Pride tells us, “All is well! You’re
okay!” Pride denies the reality of sin. In
contrast, guilt warns us that all is not well.
Guilt acknowledges the presence of sin
and urges us to confess it. So these two—
guilt and pride—battle it out in our souls.
When guilt wins, a sin that separated us
from God is removed. When pride wins,
we remain isolated from God’s grace, love,
and care. There may be a high cost to
removing guilt, but there is a higher cost
to keeping it.