2-5. “Look around at the hills.Where have you not had sex?You’ve camped out like hunters stalking deer.You’ve solicited many lover-gods,Like a streetwalking whorechasing after other gods.And so the rain has stopped.No more rain from the skies!But it doesn’t even faze you. Brazen as whores,you carry on as if you’ve done nothing wrong.Then you have the nerve to call out, ‘My father!You took care of me when I was a child. Why not now?Are you going to keep up your anger nonstop?’That’s your line. Meanwhile you keep sinning nonstop.”
21-22. The sound of voices comes drifting out of the hills,the unhappy sound of Israel’s crying,Israel lamenting the wasted years,never once giving her God a thought.“Come back, wandering children!I can heal your wanderlust!”
22-25. “We’re here! We’ve come back to you.You’re our own true God!All that popular religion was a cheap lie,duped crowds buying up the latest in gods.We’re back! Back to our true God,the salvation of Israel.The Fraud picked us clean, swindled usof what our ancestors bequeathed us,Gypped us out of our inheritance—God-blessed flocks and God-given children.We made our bed and now lie in it,all tangled up in the dirty sheets of dishonor.All because we sinned against our God,we and our fathers and mothers.From the time we took our first steps, said our first words,we’ve been rebels, disobeying the voice of our God.”