Jeremiah 3:8

"And the faithless Judah did not fear, and she went and played the harlot herself also." Israel having played the harlot first, Judah too played the harlot afterward. "And her fornication became as nothing, and she committed adultery with wood and stone." Whenever we sin, we do nothing else than, becoming stony-hearted, commit adultery with "the stone." Whenever we sin and play the harlot "beneath every leafy tree," we too commit adultery with "the wood." "And the faithless Judah did not turn to me with her whole heart, but in falsehood." If we turned to God, but deficiently, we are charged as not having turned "with the whole heart." Therefore "the faithless Judah did not turn to me with her whole heart." He did not say: and the faithless Judah turned, and stood firm, but: "and the faithless Judah did not turn to me with her whole heart, but in falsehood" she turned. The true conversion, then, is to read the things of old, to know those who were justified, to imitate them, to read those things, to see those who were blamed, to guard against falling into those blames, to read the books of the New Testament, the words of the apostles, and after reading to write all these things upon the heart, to live according to them, so that a bill of divorce may not be given to us also, but that we may be able to come to the holy inheritance, and, when the fullness of the Gentiles has been saved, then Israel may be able to enter in; for if the fullness of the Gentiles enters in, then all Israel shall be saved, "and they shall become one flock, one shepherd," teaching us to glorify God the Almighty in Christ Jesus himself, to whom be the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

"Go," therefore, "and read these words toward the north." If the wording has been understood, let us see what it means to make plain in these things. The calling of the Gentiles took its beginning from the transgression of Israel, and the apostles, when they preached to the synagogues of the Jews, say: "To you the word of salvation was sent; but since you judge yourselves unworthy, behold, we turn to the Gentiles." And the apostle, knowing what he knows about these matters, says: "By their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy." So then the many sins of that people brought about that they were forsaken and that we came to the hope of life — we who were strangers to the covenants, aliens to the promises. For how does it come to me, who wherever I chanced to be born was a stranger to what is called the holy land, now to discourse about the promises of God, and to believe in the God of the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and by the grace of God to receive Jesus Christ who was proclaimed beforehand by the prophets? If you understand these two peoples, the one from Israel and the one from the Gentiles, consider for me the deportation of Israel with regard to that people of Israel, and understand it written concerning that people: "I have sent her away and given her a bill of divorce"; for God sent away that people and gave it a bill of divorce. This is something of the following sort in the case of those who have married: if the wife is displeasing to the husband, the law of Moses says, a "bill of divorce" was made out from the husband and the wife was sent away, and it was permitted to the one who had sent away his former wife, because she seemed to have behaved unseemly, to marry another woman. Thus in the spiritual sense behold those people receiving a bill of divorce. And since they received the bill of divorce, therefore they were utterly forsaken. For where are there prophets any longer among them? Where are signs any longer among them? Where is the manifestation of God? Where is the worship, the temple, the sacrifices? They were cast out from their own place; so he gave Israel a "bill of divorce." Then we, being Judah (and Judah because of the Savior who arose from the tribe of Judah; for it is plain that our Lord has arisen out of Judah), have turned to the Lord, and our last state — which may it not now…