Day 226: Unfaithful Israel (2026)

**Fr. Mike Schmitz** (0:04)
Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to The Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story. Today, it is day 226 Well done, everybody. We're reading from Jeremiah chapter 3 We left Isaiah a couple of days ago. Jeremiah chapter 3, Ezekiel 29 and 30, as well as Proverbs chapter 14 verses 13 through 16 As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com/bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast in the app by clicking on subscribe and you receive daily episode updates. As I said, this day is Day 226 We're reading Jeremiah 3, Ezekiel 29, and 30 as well as Proverbs 14, verses 13-16.
The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 3, Unfaithful Israel.
If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the harlot with many lovers, and would you return to me, says the Lord? Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see. Where have you not been lain with? By the wayside you have sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your vile harlotry. Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come. Yet, you have a harlot's brow, you refuse to be ashamed. Have you not just now called to me, my father, you are the friend of my youth? Will he be angry forever? Will he be indignant to the end? Behold, you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could.
A Call to Repentance The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the harlot? And I thought, after she has done all this, she will return to me. But she did not return, and her sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the harlot. Because harlotry was so light to her, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this, her sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretence, says the Lord. And the Lord said to me, Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, Return, Faithless Israel, says the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord. I will not be angry forever, only acknowledge your guilt that you rebelled against the Lord your God and scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. Return, O faithless children, says the Lord, for I am your master. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. And when you have multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord, they shall no more say the ark of the covenant of the Lord. It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed. It shall not be made again.
At that time, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days, the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.
I thought how I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beauteous of all nations. And I thought you would call me my father, and would not turn from following me.