20 I broke off your yoke from long ago.

≈ I tore your chains to pieces and you said that you wouldn’t disobey,

because you’d been lying down with prostitutes on every high hill and under every leafy tree.

21 I myself had planted you as a choice vine from a reliable seed,

but how you’ve changed yourself into some degenerate, wild vine,

22 because even if you wash yourself with bleach or use heaps of soap,

your guilt remains as a stain in front of me.

That is the declaration of my master, Yahweh.

23 How can you say, ‘I’m not defiled—I haven’t worshipped the Baals’?

Consider your conduct in the valley.

≈ Recognise what you’ve done:

behaving like a young, female camel that flits here and there.

24 You’re like a wild, female donkey, accustomed to the wilderness in its desire for the wind.

No one can hold her back when she’s in heat.

All those searching for her won’t give up trying to find her at mating time.

25 Keep your feet from becoming bare, and your throat from thirst,

but you’ve said that it’s hopeless,

as you love foreign gods and feel obliged to follow them.