Lexicon :: Strong's H3808 - lō'

But I protested, “Oh no, Lord GOD! Look, I don’t know how to speak since I am only a youth.”

“They will fight against you but never prevail over you, since I am with you to rescue you.”

This is the LORD’s declaration.

“Go and announce directly to Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says:

I remember the loyalty of your youth,

your love as a bride —

how you followed me in the wilderness,

in a land not sown.

They stopped asking, “Where is the LORD

who brought us from the land of Egypt,

who led us through the wilderness,

through a land of deserts and ravines,

through a land of drought and darkness,[fn]

a land no one traveled through

and where no one lived? ”

The priests quit asking, “Where is the LORD? ”

The experts in the law no longer knew me,

and the rulers rebelled against me.

The prophets prophesied by[fn] Baal

and followed useless idols.

Has a nation ever exchanged its gods?

(But they were not gods!)

Yet my people have exchanged their[fn] Glory

for useless idols.

For my people have committed a double evil:

They have abandoned me,

the fountain of living water,

and dug cisterns for themselves ​— ​

cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

Have you not brought this on yourself

by abandoning the LORD your God

while he was leading you along the way?

Your own evil will discipline you;

your own apostasies will reprimand you.

Recognize[fn] how evil and bitter it is

for you to abandon the LORD your God

and to have no fear of me.

This is the declaration

of the Lord GOD of Armies.

How can you protest, “I am not defiled;

I have not followed the Baals”?

Look at your behavior in the valley;

acknowledge what you have done.

You are a swift young camel

twisting and turning on her way,

say to a tree, “You are my father,”

and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”

For they have turned their back to me

and not their face,

yet in their time of disaster they beg,

“Rise up and save us! ”

I have struck down your children in vain;

they would not accept discipline.

Your own sword has devoured your prophets

like a ravaging lion.

Moreover, your skirts are stained

with the blood of the innocent poor.

You did not catch them breaking and entering.

But in spite of all these things

Moreover, you will be led out from here

with your hands on your head

since the LORD has rejected those you trust;

you will not succeed even with their help.[fn]

If[fn] a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him to marry another,

can he ever return to her?

Wouldn’t such a land[fn] become totally defiled?

But you!

You have prostituted yourself with many partners —

can you return to me?

This is the LORD’s declaration.

“I thought, ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to me.’  But she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

“Yet in spite of all this, her treacherous sister Judah didn’t return to me with all her heart ​— ​only in pretense.”

This is the LORD’s declaration.

“Go, proclaim these words to the north, and say,

‘Return, unfaithful Israel.

This is the LORD’s declaration.

I will not look on you with anger,[fn]

for I am unfailing in my love.

This is the LORD’s declaration.

I will not be angry forever.

“When you multiply and increase in the land, in those days ​— ​this is the LORD’s declaration ​— ​no one will say again, “The ark of the LORD’s covenant.” It will never come to mind, and no one will remember or miss it. Another one will not be made.[fn]

I thought, “How I long to make you my sons

and give you a desirable land,

the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.”

I thought, “You will call me ‘My Father’

and never turn away from me.”

“Let us lie down in our shame;

let our disgrace cover us.

We have sinned against the LORD our God,

both we and our ancestors,

from the time of our youth even to this day.

We have not obeyed the LORD our God.”

If you return,[fn] Israel —

this is the LORD’s declaration —

you will return to me,

if you remove your abhorrent idols

from my presence

and do not waver,

Because of this, put on sackcloth;

mourn and wail,

for the LORD’s burning anger

has not turned away from us.

“At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, ‘A searing wind blows from the barren heights in the wilderness on the way to my dear[fn] people. It comes not to winnow or to sift;

My anguish, my anguish![fn] I writhe in agony!

Oh, the pain in[fn] my heart!

My heart pounds;

I cannot be silent.

For you, my soul,

have heard the sound of the ram’s horn —

the shout of battle.

“For my people are fools;

they do not know me.

They are foolish children,

without understanding.

They are skilled in doing what is evil,

but they do not know how to do what is good.”

For this is what the LORD says:

“The whole land will be a desolation,

but I will not finish it off.

LORD, don’t your eyes look for faithfulness?

You have struck them, but they felt no pain.

You finished them off,

but they refused to accept discipline.

They made their faces harder than rock,

and they refused to return.

Why should I forgive you?

Your children have abandoned me

and sworn by those who are not gods.

I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery;

they gashed themselves at the[fn] prostitute’s house.

Should I not punish them for these things?

This is the LORD’s declaration.

Should I not avenge myself

on such a nation as this?

They have contradicted the LORD

and insisted, “It won’t happen.[fn]

Harm won’t come to us;

we won’t see sword or famine.”

I am about to bring a nation

from far away against you,

house of Israel.

This is the LORD’s declaration.

It is an established nation,

an ancient nation,

a nation whose language you do not know

and whose speech you do not understand.

“But even in those days” ​— ​this is the LORD’s declaration ​— ​“I will not finish you off.

“Hear this,

you foolish and senseless[fn] people.

They have eyes, but they don’t see.

They have ears, but they don’t hear.