The opening section depicts the sin which had brought ruin on Israel, and Judah's readiness in following her example, and refusal to take warning by her fate. This twofold sin is aggravated by an insincere repentance. _And Iahvah said unto me, in the days of Josiah the king, Sawest thou what the Turncoat_ or _Recreant Israel did? she would go up every high_ _hill, and under every evergreen tree, and play the harlot there. And methought that after doing all this she would return to Me; but she returned not; and the Traitress, her sister Judah saw it. And I[21] saw that when for the very reason that she, the Turncoat Israel, had committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her her bill of divorce, the Traitress Judah, her sister, was not afraid, but she too went off and played the harlot. And so, through the cry_ (cf. Gen. iv. 10, xviii. 20 _sq._) _of her harlotry_ (or read רב for קל, _script. defect._ through her manifold or abounding harlotry) _she polluted the land_ (וַתַּחֲנֵף ver. 2), _in that she committed adultery with the Stone and with the Stock. And yet though she was involved in all this guilt_ (lit. _and even in all this_. Perhaps the sin and the penalties of it are identified; and the meaning is: _And yet for all this liability_: cf. Isa. v. 25), _the Traitress Judah returned not unto Me with all her heart_ (with a _whole_ or _undivided_ heart, with entire sincerity[22]) _but in falsehood saith Iahvah_. The example of the northern kingdom is represented as a powerful influence for evil upon Judah. This was only natural; for although from the point of view of religious development Judah is incomparably the more important of the sister kingdoms; the exact contrary is the case as regards political power and predominance. Under strong kings like Omri and Ahab, or again, Jeroboam II., Ephraim was able to assert itself as a first-rate power among the surrounding principalities; and in the case of Athaliah, we have a conspicuous instance of the manner in which Canaanite idolatry might be propagated from Israel to Judah. The prophet declares that the sin of Judah was aggravated by the fact that she had witnessed the ruin of Israel, and yet persisted in the same evil courses of which that ruin was the result. She sinned against light. The fall of Ephraim had verified the predictions of her prophets; yet "she was not afraid," but went on adding to the score of her own offences, and polluting the land with her unfaithfulness to her Divine Spouse. The idea that the very soil of her country was defiled by Judah's idolatry may be illustrated by reference to the well-known words of Ps. cvi. 38: "They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land was defiled with the bloodshed." We may also remember Elohim's word to Cain: "The voice of thy brother's blood is crying unto Me from the ground!" (Gen. iv. 10). As Iahvah's special dwelling-place, moreover,