The Exiles Return

¹At that time, says the Lord , I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.[#Ge 17:7–8; Jer 30:22]

²Thus says the Lord :

The people who survived the sword

found grace in the wilderness,

when I went to give Israel rest.

³The Lord has appeared to him from afar, saying:

Indeed, I have loved you with an everlasting love;

therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

⁴Again I will build you[#Jer 33:7]

and you will be built, O virgin of Israel.

You will again be adorned with your tambourines

and shall go forth in the dances of those who make merry.

⁵You will yet plant vines

on the mountains of Samaria;

the planters will plant

and will enjoy them.

⁶For there will be a day when the watchmen

on the hills of Ephraim will proclaim,

“Arise, and let us go up to Zion,

to the Lord our God.”

⁷For thus says the Lord :

Sing with gladness for Jacob,

and shout among the chief of the nations;

proclaim, praise, and say,

“O Lord , save Your people,

the remnant of Israel.”

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country,

and gather them from the remote parts of the earth,

and with them the blind and the lame,

the woman with child and her who is in labor with child, together;

a great company will return here.

⁹They will come with weeping,

and with supplications I will lead them.

I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters,

in a straight way in which they shall not stumble.

For I am a Father to Israel,

and Ephraim is My firstborn.

¹⁰Hear the word of the Lord , O nations,

and declare it in the coastlands far off, and say,

“He who scattered Israel will gather him

and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.”

¹¹For the Lord has redeemed Jacob[#Isa 44:23; 48:20]

and ransomed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

¹²Therefore they will come and sing in the height of Zion,

and will be joyful over the goodness of the Lord ,

for wheat and for wine and for oil

and for the young of the flock and of the herd;

and their souls will be as a watered garden.

And they will not sorrow any more at all.

¹³Then the virgin shall 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 sorrow.

¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with abundance,[#Jer 31:25]

and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness,

says the Lord .

¹⁵Thus says the Lord :

A voice is heard in Ramah,

lamentation and bitter weeping,

Rachel weeping for her children,

refusing to be comforted for her children,

because they are no more.

¹⁶Thus says the Lord :

Keep your voice from weeping

and your eyes from tears;

for your work shall be rewarded,

says the Lord ,

and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.

¹⁷There is hope for your future,

says the Lord ,

that your children will come back to their own border.

¹⁸I have surely heard Ephraim pleading:

“You have chastised me,

and I was chastised, as an untrained calf;

turn me back and I will be turned,

for you are the Lord my God.

¹⁹Surely after I turned back,

I repented;

and after I was instructed,

I struck myself on my thigh;

I was ashamed and even humiliated

because I bore the reproach of my youth.”

²⁰Is Ephraim My dear son?

Is he a pleasant child?

For since I spoke against him,

I still remember him;

therefore My heart longs for him.

I will surely have mercy on him,

says the Lord .

²¹Set up road marks,

place guideposts.

Set your heart toward the highway,

even the way by which you went.

Turn back, O virgin of Israel,

turn back to these your cities.

²²How long will you go about,[#Jer 2:23]

O faithless daughter?

For the Lord has created a new thing in the earth:

A woman shall obtain a man.

²³Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Once again they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities when I restore their fortunes: “May the Lord bless you, O habitation of righteousness and mountain of holiness!”[#Isa 1:26; Jer 50:7; Zec 8:3]

²⁴And Judah and all its cities will dwell there, the farmer and those who go out with the flocks.[#Eze 36:10; Zec 8:4–8]

²⁵For I satiate the weary souls and I replenish every languishing soul.[#Jer 31:14; Jn 4:14]

²⁶Upon this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord , when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.[#Eze 36:9; Hos 2:23]

²⁸It shall come to pass that 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 .[#Jer 44:27; #Jer 1:10]

²⁹In those days they will say no more:

“The fathers have eaten sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

³⁰But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man that eats the sour grape, his teeth will be set on edge.[#Isa 3:11; Eze 18:4]

A New Covenant

³¹Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord ,

when I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah.

³²It will not be according to the covenant

that I made with their fathers

in the day that I took them by the hand

to bring them out of the land of Egypt,

because they broke My covenant,

although I was a husband to them,

says the Lord .

³³But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, says the Lord :

I will put My law within them

and write it in their hearts;

and I will be their God,

and they shall be My people.

³⁴They shall teach no more every man his neighbor

and every man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord ,”

for they all shall know Me,

from the least of them to the greatest of them,

says the Lord ,

for I will forgive their iniquity,

and I will remember their sin no more.

³⁵Thus says the Lord ,

who gives the sun

for a light by day

and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars

for a light by night,

who stirs up the sea

so that the waves roar,

the Lord of Hosts is His name:

³⁶If those ordinances depart from before Me,

says the Lord ,

then the seed of Israel also will cease

from being a nation before Me forever.

³⁷Thus says the Lord :

If heaven above can be measured,

and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,

I will also cast off all the seed of Israel

for all that they have done,

says the Lord .

³⁸Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord , when the city will be built to the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.[#2Ki 14:13; Zec 14:10]

³⁹The measuring line shall stretch out straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah.[#Zec 2:1–2]

⁴⁰The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the Kidron Valley, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, will be holy to the Lord . It will not be plucked up nor thrown down any more forever.[#2Sa 15:23; #Joel 3:17]