Jeremiah 3:1

“ Moses wrote that if a man divorces his wife and then she marries another man, her first husband certainly must not [RHQ] take her back again to be his wife, because that would certainly [RHQ] cause the whole nation to become unacceptable to me. But you have more idols than prostitutes have men whom they have slept with! So, why should I accept you if you return to me?” [RHQ] says Yahweh.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

In Context

2“Look up at the barren hilltops. On every hilltop there are [RHQ] idols that you have worshiped. It is as though they are all lovers with whom you have had sex. It is as though you have sat along the roadsides like an Arab, waiting to attack and steal things from those who pass by. Because of worshiping idols and all the other wicked things that you have done, you have caused the entire land to become unacceptable to me.

Read all of Jeremiah 3

Cross References

Deuteronomy 4:29But while you are there, if you will try to know Yahweh your God, and if you try with your entire inner being to know him, he will ◄answer/reveal himself to► you.

Deuteronomy 24:1“Suppose a man marries a woman and later decides that he does not want her because there is something about her that he doesn’t like. And suppose he writes on paper that he is divorcing her, and he gives the paper to her [SYN] and sends her away from his house.

Judges 19:2But she started to sleep with other men also. Then she left him and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem. She stayed there for four months.

Isaiah 55:6Seek to know me while it is still possible for you to do that; call to me while I am near!

Jeremiah 2:20Long ago, you stopped obeying me [MET], and you would not allow me to lead you [MET]; you refused to worship me. Instead, you worship idols that are under trees on the top of every hill, and your young women have sex with [EUP] men at those places.

Jeremiah 3:9They thought that worshiping idols did not matter to me, so they have made the entire land unacceptable to me by worshiping idols of wood and stone.

Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 3:1

The foregoing chapter was wholly taken up with reproofs and threatenings against the people of God, for their apostasies from him; but in this chapter gracious invitations and encouragements are given them to return and repent, notwithstanding the multitude and greatness of their provocations, which are here specified, to magnify the mercy of God, and to show that as sin abounded grace did much more abound. Here, I. It is further shown how bad they had been and how well they deserved to be quite abandoned, and yet… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Jeremiah 3:1