In a city by the sea, there lived two sisters. The city was ruled by a duke. Everyone in the city, unbeknownst to them, belonged to the Duke. The sisters lived in his stately residence. Every luxury they desired, he provided. They wore the finest gowns and ate the richest foods. 

One day as the youngest sister was walking through the streets of the city, she saw a young man dressed in poor sailor’s clothes. There was nothing peculiar in his appearance that should have arrested her attention. However as she passed by him, she could not help staring at him.

The next day she saw him again. This time he noticed her stare. She crossed the street and approached him. 
“There is something different about you. Where are you from?” she demanded.
“I come from the capital of our country,” the poor sailor answered with a smile. 
“Why do you look so happy like you possessed all the goods of the world and had every experience worth having?”
“My lady, I have come across the sea, endured storms, skirmishes with pirate ships, and been shipwrecked on your shores,” the sailor replied still smiling.
“How can someone who has been through all that and lost everything be happy?” she asked.
“Come see me tomorrow, and I will tell you,” the sailor replied. 

The following day, the sailor told the younger sister about his country far away. She was confused. His customs sounded completely upside down compared to the Duke’s city.
“Well, you see,” said the young foreigner, “In my country, everything is right side up. It is here in your city where everything is upside down.”
The girl laughed in disbelief. 
“Come back with me, and I will show you,” he said to her.
“I would like to go with you someday,” she replied, “For even though you have nothing, you are as happy as if you possessed everything. I have everything I want, yet I am as empty inside as if I had nothing.”
The man looked at her with sadness in his eyes.
“You must think I’m quite silly to feel like that when I’m dressed like a princess and live a life of luxury. It does not make sense.”
“It does to me,” he said with a pitying look.
“How?” she asked shocked.
“You would not believe me if I told you now, but when you are ready I will show you.”

Weeks went by and every day the younger sister walked the streets of the city until she found the young man. The man continued to ask if she would return to his own country with him. Time and again she replied, “not yet”. Then one day, while they were walking together down the street past great buildings with the wealthy hurrying in and out, she asked him, 
“When I told you I felt poor in such a rich place, you believed me. When are you going to tell me why?”
“Do you want to see?” he asked. 
Several weeks, even a couple of days ago, she would have laughed at him for asking such a silly question so seriously, but today, she simply answered.
“I do.”
He reached up beside her face and unclasped something from her hair. She felt something fall over her face. Putting her hands up quickly, she tried to grab it. But what she felt was not that something had fallen over her face but that something had fallen from it. For her fingers felt her skin. A clothe, that she had covered her just before now, lay on the ground. 

Bringing her hands down, she looked up at the street. The rich buildings she had been admiring were suddenly altered. The great stone and glass buildings just before glowing in the sunlight now appeared crumbling, glass broken, paint peeling. Rather than lined with flowers, the street was strewn with rotting garbage. The bustling people just a moment ago clad in brilliant colors and expensive clothes were now dressed in deteriorating rags. Rather than carrying in their arms bags and boxes overflowing with expensive commodities, the boxes were loaded with rocks and the bags were loaded with rags and moth eaten clothes. 
She now looked down at herself. She too was no longer in her fine gown, but the dress that barely clung to her was thread bare and tattered.
​
“What have you done?” she exclaimed.
But when she looked back at the poor young sailor, she saw a sturdy built man dressed as a great lord. 
“Who are you?” she gasped. 
“I will tell you in time,” he replied, “Do you understand what you see?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t believe it’s true. It cannot be true.”
With that she left him and ran back to the Duke’s mansion. 

“Sister, what has you so frazzled?” her older sister asked when she burst into their apartments. “You must be famished. Come, have some refreshments. The Duke has just sent up these fine fruits for us.”

The low table was hardly more than a thin wood board hammered on top of four mishapped wooden legs. The metal platter, to which the older sister regally motioned her arm, was piled with grapes that were covered in mold. As the younger sister stood still, the older sister reached down to the platter, took two or three of the furry grapes, placed them in her mouth, and slowly chewed them. Then she took several more between her fingers. She held them up to the younger sister. The younger sister covered her mouth and recoiled back. 

“What is wrong with you?” the older sister demanded, “Why do you look as if I were giving you something rancid?”
The younger sister looked and saw now for the first time that her older sister wore a veil over her face. As she turned to leave the room, her older sister grabbed her arm, 
“Where are you off to so soon? I have seen how every day you run out to the streets. The Duke noticed too. He asked me about it today. Who are you always so eager to see?”
​
The younger sister pulled her arm from her sister’s grasp and hurried out of the room, out of the house, and into the city street. But he was gone. She searched the whole city. That night she returned to the Duke’s house alone. Had the young man returned to his country without her?

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There was once a beautiful young bride. Her husband loved her. When they married, he promised her that one day they would have a lovely home of their own and he would provide her everything she could ever need.

In the early years of their marriage, her husband provided just enough to make ends meet, and they constantly moved from place to place. But the wife trusted her husband would keep his promise to her.

Then the day arrived, and he brought her to their new home. It was everything he had promised her. Not only that but all she wanted was at her fingertips.

However, she had a problem. Her husband was perfect. He did not have a single flaw. She was not perfect. The more time they spent together the more she realized how imperfect she was.

One day while her husband was away on business, she noticed a young man pass by the door of her home. He stopped and talked with her. She realized that the young man did not expect her to be perfect. He did not expect her to change for him as her husband expected of her. 

Sometime later, her husband returned from his trip to find his wife and the young man alone in his house. Her husband was furious. She was surprised to see her perfect husband angry. After throwing the young man out, he said to her, “What have you found wrong with me that you have not remained faithful to me?”

The next day the young man again walked by her door. She invited him in. The husband returned from work later in the day. Walking through his home, he passed by their room to see the two of them together. 

To her shock, her husband divorced her. So, she went to live with the young man. She sold her jewelry, that her husband had given her, to buy gifts for her lover. Years went by and she moved from lover to lover, growing more and more discontent. 

One day while walking down the main street, she was intercepted by her lender. He demanded payment. She had no money, and she begged for time. The lender consented but warned it was the last time her payment could be forestalled and the next time the balance would be required in full.

She went from friend to friend, but none would give her anything. She went to the house of her lover. He did not answer. She went to the man she had known before that and before that. None would help her. Finally, she came to the door of the young man. He answered his door. When she said who she was, he laughed and replied that she, a dirty prostitute with matted hair and dressed in rags, could not be the beautiful young woman he had known so long ago.

Now she found herself on the old familiar street of her husband’s house. She remembered her husband, the perfect man she had left. Never before had she realized how far below him she was, how imperfect. As she turned to go, she saw her husband walking towards her down the street on his way home. He was walking with her lender. 

The two stopped her. The lender demanded payment. Her husband asked what she owed. When told, he left and went into the house. Returning, he gave the lender the deed to the house to satisfy her debt. The lender took it and left.

He asked her, “Will you leave your life and come back to me to be my wife?”

“How can I ever make myself good enough for you,” she asked, “Why would you give up anything for me after what I did to you?”

“Not because of who you are but because of who I am. Come back to me, and I can again make you perfect in my eyes.”

So she returned to her husband whose name is Love.

​“I remember how eager you were to please me
    as a young bride long ago,
how you loved me and followed me
    even through the barren wilderness. (Jer. 2:2)
“What did your ancestors find wrong with me
    that led them to stray so far from me? (Jer. 2:5)
  Is there any place you have not been defiled
    by your adultery with other gods?
You sit like a prostitute beside the road waiting for a customer.
    You sit alone like a nomad in the desert. (Jer. 3:2)
Yet you say to me,
    ‘…you have been my guide since my youth.
5 Surely you won’t be angry forever!
    Surely you can forget about it!’
So you talk,
    but you keep on doing all the evil you can.” (Jer. 3:4-5)
“O Israel, my faithless people,
    come home to me again,
for I am merciful.
    I will not be angry with you forever.
13 Only acknowledge your guilt.
    Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God
and committed adultery against him
    by worshiping idols under every green tree.
Confess that you refused to listen to my voice.
    I, the Lord, have spoken! (Jer. 3:12-13)

​All through the prophets, we hear God repeat this story. In it, He casts Himself as the husband and His people as the unfaithful wife. We are His people. It is uncomfortable for us to live so near the perfection of God because it shows how imperfect we are. Day by day we must live in the purifying light of God, repenting of our disobedience to Him, and then putting on anew the perfect righteousness He gives us.