Bible Strands
Jeremiah 3:21
A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Jeremiah addresses the house of Israel immediately after pronouncing their spiritual betrayal, capturing a moment where the people respond to God's indictment with a public cry on the open high places.
The words — קוֹל (kol) means "a voice" or "sound," and שְׂפָיִם (shefa'im) literally denotes "bare heights," emphasizing the exposed, desolate location of their repentance.
The thread — This motif of weeping and supplication on barren heights echoes the people's past idolatrous violations (Jeremiah 3:2) and anticipates the promised restoration where God leads them with weeping and supplication (Jeremiah 31:9), while their forgetting of God parallels the complaint in Jeremiah 2:32.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment that genuine repentance begins with recognizing how perverted ways and forgotten devotion have led to spiritual desolation, requiring a direct return to God rather than ritualized crying on empty ground.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 2:32 Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.
- Jeremiah 3:2 “Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
- Jeremiah 31:9 They will come with weeping, and by their supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk beside streams of waters, on a level path where they will not stumble. For I am Israel’s Father, and Ephraim is My firstborn.”
- 2 Corinthians 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
- Isaiah 15:2 Dibon goes up to its temple to weep at its high places. Moab wails over Nebo, as well as over Medeba. Every head is shaved, every beard is cut off.
- Isaiah 17:10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines—
- Numbers 22:32 The angel of the LORD asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to oppose you, because your way is perverse before me.
- Job 33:27 Then he sings before men with these words: ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.
- Proverbs 10:9 He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out.
- Proverbs 19:3 A man’s own folly subverts his way, yet his heart rages against the LORD.