 1 At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2 Thus says the Lord: The people who were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness. Even Israel, when I will go to give him rest. 3 The Lord has appeared to me from far away saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with lovingkindness. 4 I will build you again and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again put on your tambourines and go forth in the dances of those who rejoice. 5 You will plant vines on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant and eat them as common things. 6 For there will be a day when the watchmen on Mount Ephraim will cry, Arise and let us go to Zion to the Lord our God. 7 For thus says the Lord, Sing with gladness for Jacob and shout among the chief of the nations. Cry out, give praise, and say, O Lord save your people, the remnant of Israel. 8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the corners of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together. A great company shall return there. 9 They shall come with weeping, and with prayers I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way. They shall not stumble in it, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. 10 Hear the Word of the Lord O nations and declare it in the coastlands far away. Say, Those who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him like a shepherd keeps his flock. 11 For the Lord has redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of the one stronger than he. 12 Therefore they will come and sing in the height of Zion and flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat and for wine and for oil and for the young of the flock and the herd. Their soul will be like a watered garden. They will not pine away any more at all. 13 The virgins will rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together. For I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice from their affliction. 14 I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness and my people will be satisfied with my goodness, says the Lord. 15 Thus says the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and bitter weeping. Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are not. 16 Thus says the Lord: Hold back your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. For your work will be rewarded, says the Lord. They will come again from the land of the enemy. 17 There is hope for your future, says the Lord, that your children will come again to their own border. 18 I have surely heard Ephraim mourning to himself, saying, You have chastised me and I was chastised like a bull not broken. Turn me and I will be turned. For you are the Lord my God. 19 Surely after that I was turned and repented. After I was instructed, I struck my own thigh. I was ashamed and even confounded because I bore the disgrace+ of my youth. 20 Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a delightful child? For as often as I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord. 21 Set up waymarks. Make sign posts for yourself. Set your heart toward the highway, the way you went. Turn again, O virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities. 22 How long will you turn to and fro, O faithless daughter? For the Lord has created a new thing in the land. A woman will enclose a man. 23 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Again they will speak this Word in the land of Judah and in its cities. I will again bring their captivity. The Lord bless you, O home of justice and mountain of holiness. 24 Farmers, and those going forth with flocks, will live together in Judah and in all of its cities. 25 For I satisfy the weary soul. I will fill every sorrowful soul. 26 After this, I awoke and looked up and my sleep was sweet to me. 27 Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the descendants of mankind and of animals. 28 As I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. 29 In those days they will not say any more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30 But everyone will die for their own iniquity. For everyone who eats sour grapes, their teeth will be set on edge. 31 Behold, the day will come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant even though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this will be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. 34 They will no longer teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying, Know the Lord. For they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more. 35 Thus says the Lord who gives the sun for a light by day and the laws of the moon and of the stars for a light by night. He divides the sea when its waves roar. The Lord of hosts is His name. 36 If those ordinances depart from me, says the Lord, the descendants of Israel will cease from being a nation before me forever. 37 Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be searched out, I will also cast off all the descendants of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord. 38 The days are coming, says the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the Tower of Hananeel to the Corner Gate. 39 The measuring line shall yet go before it to the hill Gareb, and shall go around to Goath. 40 The whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields to the river of Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord. It shall not be plucked up nor thrown down any more forever.
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