 REV Bible |   |   |
| REV Bible | | |
1“At that time,” says Yahweh, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”
2This is what Yahweh says: “The people who survived the sword found favor in the wilderness; yes, Israel, when it went to find its rest.”
3Yahweh appeared to him from afar, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with covenant faithfulness I have drawn you.
4Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt, O virgin Israel. You will take up your tambourines again and go out, dancing with those who make merry.
5Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters will plant and will enjoy its fruit.
6For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim will cry out, ‘Arise, and let’s go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.’”
7For this is what Yahweh says: “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the foremost of the nations; proclaim, praise, and say, ‘Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’
8Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labor with child; a large throng—they will return here together.
9They will come with weeping, and they will pray as I lead them. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, on a straight road where they will not stumble, for I am a father to Israel and Ephraim is my firstborn.
10Hear the word of Yahweh, you nations, and declare it in the islands afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’
11For Yahweh will ransom Jacob and redeem him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
12They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion, and will be radiant over the goodness of Yahweh; over the grain and over the new wine, and over the oil, and over the young of the flocks and of the herds, and their life will be like a watered garden; and they will never languish again.
13Then will the virgin rejoice with dancing, and the young men and the old rejoice together, for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and give them joy in place of their sorrow.
14I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.
15This is what Yahweh says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”
16This is what Yahweh says: “Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,” says Yahweh, “and they will come again from the land of the enemy.
17There is hope for your latter end,” says Yahweh, “and your children will come again to their own territory.
18I have surely heard Ephraim moaning, ‘You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined like an untrained calf; bring me back and I will be restored, for you are Yahweh my God.
19Surely after I turned away, I repented; and after I was instructed, I struck on my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’
20Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do still remember, yes, remember him: therefore my bowels are stirred for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says Yahweh.
21“Set up road signs, make guideposts; set your heart toward the highway, even the road by which you went. Return, O Virgin Israel, return to these your cities.
22How long will you go here and there, you unfaithful daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”
23This is what Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “When I restore their fortunes they will again speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities, ‘Yahweh bless you, habitation of righteousness, holy mountain.’
24Judah and all its cities will dwell in it together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks.
25For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul I have replenished.”
26At this I awoke, and looked around, and my sleep had been sweet to me.
27“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the offspring of man and with the offspring of animals.
28Like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says Yahweh.
29In those days they will no longer say, ‘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 who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.
31Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, that I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
32not like the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant that they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares Yahweh.
33“But this is the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh. “I will put my law within them, yes, I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people,
34and they will no longer teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” says Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.”
35This is what Yahweh says: who gives the sun for a 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— Yahweh of Armies is his name:
36“If these ordinances depart from before me,” says Yahweh, “then the seed of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.”
37This is what Yahweh says: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth can be searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the seed of Israel because of all that they have done,” says Yahweh.
38“Behold, the days are coming,” says Yahweh, “that Yahweh’s citya will be built from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.
39The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn to Goah.
40The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, will be holy to Yahweh. It will not be plucked up, nor overthrown any more forever.”
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