Add parallel Print Page Options

Go and shout this in Jerusalem’s streets: This is what the Lord says! I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren deserts. In those days Israel was a holy people, the first of my children.[a] All who harmed them were counted deeply guilty, and great evil fell on anyone who touched them.

4-5 O Israel, says the Lord, why did your fathers desert me? What sin did they find in me that turned them away and changed them into fools who worship idols?

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 2:3 the first of my children, literally, “the firstfruits of his harvest.”

“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:

“This is what the Lord says:

“‘I remember the devotion of your youth,(A)
    how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the wilderness,(B)
    through a land not sown.
Israel was holy(C) to the Lord,(D)
    the firstfruits(E) of his harvest;
all who devoured(F) her were held guilty,(G)
    and disaster overtook them,’”
declares the Lord.

Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob,
    all you clans of Israel.

Read full chapter