Israel, return to Yahweh your God; For you have fallen because of your sin.
God's undying love for mankind underlies this plea for the return of the fallen people.  Since the chapter is definitely Messianic and prophetic of the New Israel to be identified with the kingdom of Christ, how should the word "return" be understood?  It is a word that implies the restoration of a lost and broken fellowship; and it is appropriate here in its primary application to the few faithful in the apostate Israel who would indeed heed the summons, continue to wait for the kingdom of God, and in the times of Christ become the solid nucleus of the New Israel.  The apostles themselves, as well as persons such as Nathaniel and Anna, were among the old Israel who heeded the invitation and indeed returned to God in the higher and nobler relationship to the Father as the Bride of Christ.  In the large implications of the word "return," it included the Gentiles who had long been in the darkness of paganism; but they too "returned" to God, for they also had "fallen by their iniquity," as evident from  Romans 1.