How shall I give you up, Ephraim? Shall I deliver you up, Israel? How shall I make you like Admah? Shall I set you as Zeboim? My heart churns within Me; My compassions are kindled together.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, please judge between Me and My vineyard.

What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield rotten grapes?

But I said, How shall I put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful inheritance among the multitudes of nations! And I said, You shall call Me, My Father, and shall not turn away from Me.

How shall I pardon you for this? Your children have forsaken Me, and have sworn by those that are not gods. When I adjured them, then they committed adultery, and gathered themselves by troops in a harlot's house.

Shall I not punish for these things? says Jehovah. And shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and departed.

Therefore thus says Jehovah of Hosts, Behold, I will refine them and try them; for how else shall I deal with the daughter of My people?

Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it encumber the ground?

And see if it produces fruit. But if not, after that you can cut it down.

And as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it,

saying, If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things that make for your peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes.

And when Jehovah raised up judges for them, Jehovah was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for Jehovah was moved to pity before their groaning because of those oppressing and thrusting at them.

And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, by going after other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They have not failed from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

When He killed them, then they sought after Him; and they returned and sought earnestly for the Mighty God.

Nevertheless they deceived Him with their mouths, and they lied to Him with their tongues;

Then they believed His Words; they sang His praise.

They soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel,

And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not returned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says Jehovah.

And you had turned today, and had done what was right in My eyes proclaiming liberty, each man to his neighbor. And you had made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name.

yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when affliction or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he stumbles.

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the full true knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the end is worse for them than the beginning.

But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to his own vomit, and, a sow, having been washed, to her wallowing in the mire.

Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, as chaff driven from the threshing floor by the storm, and as smoke out of the chimney.