“Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, thus says Adonai: I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, and the way you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
Then Moses said, “Adonai will give you meat to eat in the evening and enough bread to fill you in the morning, since Adonai hears your complaints that you mutter against Him, what are we? Your complaining is not against us, but against Adonai!”
Go out, daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon, with a wreath his mother placed on him on the day of his marriage— on the day of his heart’s joy.
Then Adonai said to me: “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: ‘Hear the words of this covenant, and do them.’
They did not ask ‘Where is Adonai, who brought us up from the land of Egypt and led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, through a land of drought and distress, through a land where no one travels, where no one lives?’
Stand in the gate of Adonai’s house and proclaim there this word and say: “Hear the word of Adonai, all you of Judah that come through these gates to worship Adonai.
“Again I passed by and saw you, and behold, you were truly at the time of love. I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you,” says Adonai. “So you became Mine.
Then I will punish her for the days of the Baalim to whom she would burn incense— adorning herself with her rings and jewelry, going after her lovers— but Me she forgot.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
I will give her back her vineyards from there and make the valley of Achor a door of hope. She will respond there— as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of the land of Egypt.
For their mother has practiced prostitution. She who conceived them has been shameful. For she said, ‘Let me go after my lovers, who are giving me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
“Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel. Like early fruit on a fig tree in its first season I saw your fathers. They came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame. So they became as detestable as the thing they loved.
For Adonai your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand—He has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. These 40 years Adonai your God has been with you—you have lacked nothing.”’
You are to remember all the way that Adonai your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness—in order to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His mitzvot or not.
You adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.