3 Listen, if a man divorced his wife and she left and married another man,

surely he wouldn’t move in with her again?

Wouldn’t the country end up totally immoral?

Now you’ve acted like a prostitute with many partners—

would you then return to me?

That is Yahweh’s declaration.

2 Look up at the barren hilltops and see.

Is there anywhere there where you haven’t given yourself?

You sat by the paths waiting for them like an Arab waiting in the wilderness,

and so you’ve polluted the nation by your acts of prostitution and wickedness.

3 That’s why the showers have been withheld

≈ and the late rains never came,

yet you have the look of a prostitute who refuses to be ashamed.

4 Even now you say that I’m your father,

or that I’m your close friend from since you were young.

5 Will he be angry forever?

≈ Or permanently keep watch?

Listen, you say that, but you do all the wicked things that you can.