Hello everyone.
Heyo! Welcome back to Scattering Flowers with Elise and Miles, a podcast where you read the daily Gospels and the Saint of the Day.
Let’s get started.
Today is Thursday, October 29th, and we are still taking time to read through the Bible together.
Here we go, Jeremiah 3.
If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, does he have the right to return to her?
Would not that land be completely defiled?
But, says the Lord, you have been unfaithful with many lovers, and yet you would return to me.
Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and recall whether there is any place that you have not offered your body to another.
By the waysides you waited for lovers like an Arab in the desert.
You defiled the land with your harlotry and wickedness.
Therefore the rain showers are whitened and the spring rains have not fallen.
Yet you have the brazen boldness of a prostitute, and you refuse to blush in shame.
Not so long ago you addressed me, my father, the beloved friend of my youth.
Will you be angry with me forever and continue your wrath towards me till the end?
This is how you speak, but you continue to be obstinate and to do every evil you can.
During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, Have you seen what that faithless Israel has done?
Now she went to the top of every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the harlot.
But I truly believe that after she had done all this, she would return to me.
However, she did not return, and her faithless sister Judah saw this.
She also knew that I had sent that faithless Israel away with a decree of divorce because of all of her acts of adultery.
However, the faithless sister Judah was not frightened.
She too went off and played the harlot.
In her eagerness to sin, she polluted the land, committing adulterous acts in pieces of wood.
Despite all this, her faithless sister Judah did not return to me.
Sincerity of heart, but only as a show of pretense, says the Lord.
Then the Lord said to me, Compared with the treacherous Judah, faithless Israel has proved to be less guilty.
Go forth and proclaim these words toward the north, saying, Return, rebel Israel, says the Lord.
I will not look upon you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord.
My wrath will not continue forever.
Simply acknowledge your guilt and your rebellion against the Lord your God.
How have you pursued yourself with strangers under every green tree and refused to listen to my voice, says the Lord.
Return, rebellious children, says the Lord, for I am your master, and I will take you one from the city and two from the family, and I will bring you to Zion.
Over you I will appoint shepherds after my own heart and understanding.
And when you have multiplied and grown numerous in the land, says the Lord, they will no longer say in those days, The ark of the covenant of the Lord will no longer think of it or remember it or realize that it is gone to make another.
When the time comes, Jerusalem will be called the throne of the Lord, and all the nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord.
No longer will they stubbornly follow their own evil inclinations.
In those days the house of Israel and together they will come from the land of the north into the land that I gave to your fathers as a heritage.
I then gave.
Consideration as to how I would treat you as sons and give you a present land, to the most beautiful heritage of all the nations.
Further, I thought that you would call me Father and never cease to follow me, but like a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, so have you been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel, says the Lord.
A cry on the bare heights is heard, the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the Lord their God.
Return, you rebellious children, and I will forgive your faithlessness.
Here we are, we are returning to you, for you are the Lord our God.
The hills are truly a delusion, as the tumult in the mountains.
Truly in the Lord our God alone is the salvation of Israel.
Ever since we were young, Baal has devoured everything in which our fathers toiled, though flocks and those herds, their sons and their daughters.
Let us lie down in our shame, and let us, our dishonor cover us, for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this very day, and we have failed to obey the voice of the Lord our God.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, help us to never turn away from you, and help us to always come back when you call us.
And help me to always listen to your word, and to always remember my sins and always ask you for forgiveness.
Amen.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Thank you so much for listening.
We’ll be back tomorrow.
Scatter more flowers.
See ya.