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Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me’ (Zechariah 1:3)

'Return' is a word with such resonance. A return ticket means that you expect to come home, and soon, so different from a single, just as au revoir feels so much less final than goodbye. Come back to me, says the Lord, your old bed is waiting and I have your chair by the hearth ready. There is a longing there, a wistfulness about things undone, time together lost.

But there is also a need to turn around. Just as the NT word for repent, metanoeō, is to change direction of thought, so here the Hebrew is simply turn-you (shubu). Spin around, you're going the wrong way. The change of heart required is not simply an improvement in attitude by a radical alteration of direction. Wrong way go back, says the Lord, and not just to the Hebrews but also to us. 

Turn around and show me your face, for I love you, says the Lord. Return to Me.

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