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that time,” declares the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.”
2 This is what the Lord says:
“The people who survived the sword
found favour in the wilderness;
when I came down to give Israel rest.”
3 The Lord appeared to us, as in times past, saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
and with covenant loyalty I have drawn you.
4 Again I will build you, and you will be rebuilt,
O Virgin Israel!
Again you will take up your tambourines,
and go forth with joyful dancing.
5 You will again plant vineyards
on the mountains of Samaria;
the planters will plant them,
and they will enjoy the fruit.
6 For there will be a day when watchmen cry out
in the hill country of Ephraim:
‘Come, let us go up to Zion,
to the Lord our God!’ ”
7 For this is what the Lord says:
“Sing with joy for Jacob;
shout for the chief of the nations!
Proclaim, give praise, and say:
‘O Lord, save your people,
the remnant of Israel!’
8 Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the ends of the earth—
among them the blind and the lame,
expectant mothers and women in labour;
a great throng will return here.
9 They will come with weeping,
consoled as I lead them back here.
I will lead them beside streams of water,
on a level path where they will not stumble;
for I am Israel’s Father,
and Ephraim is My firstborn.
10 “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,
and declare it among the distant coastlands!
Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him;
He will keep watch as a shepherd his flock’.
11 For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
12 They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion;
they will be radiant with joy at the goodness of the Lord,
for wheat, new wine, and oil,
and for the young of the flocks and the herds.
Their life will be become like a watered garden,
and they will sorrow no more.
13 Then the maidens will rejoice with dancing,
and young men and old also.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them,
and give them gladness for sorrow.
14 I will satisfy the priests with abundance,
and My people will be filled with My bounty,”
declares the Lord.
15 This is what the Lord says:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted,
because her children are no more.”
16 This is what the Lord says:
“Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord,
“and your children will return from the land of the enemy.
17 So there is hope for your future,”
declares the Lord.
“Your children will come back to their own land.
18 “I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning:
‘You have disciplined me,
and I was disciplined like an untrained calf.
Restore me, and I will return,
for You are the Lord my God.
19 For after I had turned away, I repented;
after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh;
I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated,
because I bore the disgrace of my youth’.
20 Is not Ephraim My dear son?
Is he not the child in whom I delight?
As often as I speak against him,
I do earnestly still remember him.
Therefore My heart yearns for him;
I will surely have mercy on him,”
declares the Lord.
21 “Set up road markers for yourself,
make yourself signposts;
keep in mind the highway,
the route that you travelled.
Return, O Virgin Israel,
return back to these cities of yours.
22 How long will you waver,
O unfaithful daughter?
For the Lord has created something new in the land;
a woman will encompass a man.”
23 This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “When I bring them back from their captivity, they will again used these words in the land of Judah and in its cities:
‘The Lord bless you, O righteous dwelling,
O holy mountain’.
24 Judah and all its cities will dwell there together,
and farmers and those who move about with their flocks.
25 For I will refresh the weary soul,
and replenish all who are faint.”
26 At this I awoke and looked around, and my sleep had been very sweet to me.
27 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. 28 Then it will come to pass, that just as I have watched over them to uproot and to tear down, to overthrow, and to destroy and afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord.
29 “In those days they will no longer say,
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge’.
30 But instead, everyone will die for his own sins. Anyone who eats sour grapes—his own teeth will be set on edge.
31 “Behold, the days are coming,”
declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
in the day that I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt—
My covenant which they broke,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
33 But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days,”
declares the Lord.
“I will put My law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be My people.
34 “No longer will each man teach his neighbour,
or each man his brother,
saying, ‘Know the Lord’,
for they will all know Me,
from the least of them to the greatest of them,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their iniquity,
and remember their sins no more.”
35 This is what the Lord says,
who gives the sun
for light by day,
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars
for light by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the Lord of Hosts is His name:
36 “Only if these decrees would depart from before Me”,
declares the Lord,
“will the descendants of Israel also cease
from being a nation before Me forever.”
37 This is what the Lord says:
“Only if the heavens above can be measured,
and the foundations of the earth searched out below,
will I cast off the descendants of Israel
because of all they have done,”
declares the Lord.
38 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when this city will be rebuilt to the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 The measuring line will again extend from there over the hill of Gareb, and then turn toward Goath. 40 The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the fields as far as the Kidron Valley, to the Horse Gate toward the east, will be holy to the Lord. It will never be uprooted or demolished again.”