Mourning Turned to Joy

1At that time, saith the Lord, I will be a God to the family of Israel, and they shall be to me a people.

2Thus saith the Lord, I found him warm in the wilderness with them that were slain with the sword: go ye and destroy not Israel.

3The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore have I drawn thee in compassion.

4For I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt yet take thy timbrel, and go forth with the party of them that make merry.

5For ye have planted vineyards on the mountains of Samaria: plant ye, and praise.

6For it is a day when those that plead on the mountains of Ephraim shall call, saying, Arise ye, and go up to Sion to the Lord your God.

7For thus saith the Lord to Jacob; Rejoice ye, and exult over the head of the nations: make proclamation, and praise ye: say, The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel.

8Behold, I bring them from the north, and will gather them from the end of the earth to the feast of the passover: and the people shall beget a great multitude, and they shall return hither.

9They went forth with weeping, and I will bring them back with consolation, causing them to lodge by the channels of waters in a straight way, and they shall not err in it: for I am become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born.

10Hear the words of the Lord, ye nations, and proclaim them to the islands afar off; say, He that scattered Israel will also gather him, and keep him as one that feeds his flock.

11For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, he has rescued him out of the hand of them that were stronger than he.

12And they shall come, and shall rejoice in the mount of Sion, and shall come to the good things of the Lord, even to a land of corn, and wine, and fruits, and cattle, and sheep: and their soul shall be as a fruitful tree; and they shall hunger no more.

13Then shall the virgins rejoice in the assembly of youth, and the old men shall rejoice; and I will turn their mourning into joy, and will make them merry.

14I will expand and cheer with wine the soul of the priests the sons of Levi, and my people shall be satisfied with my good things: thus saith the Lord.

15A voice was heard in Rama, of lamentation, and of weeping, and wailing; Rachel would not cease weeping for her children, because they are not.

16Thus saith the Lord; Let thy voice cease from weeping, and thine eyes from thy tears: for their is a reward for thy works; and they shall return from the land of thine enemies.

17There shall be an abiding home for thy children.

18I have heard the sound of Ephraim lamenting, and saying, Thou hast chastened me, and I was chastened; I as a calf was not willingly taught: turn thou me, and I shall turn; for thou art the Lord my God.

19For after my captivity I repented; and after I knew, I groaned for the day of shame, and shewed thee that I bore reproach from my youth.

20Ephraim is a beloved son, a pleasing child to me: for because my words are in him, I will surely remember him: therefore I made haste to help him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.

21Prepare thyself, O Sion; execute vengeance; look to thy ways: return, O virgin of Israel, by the way by which thou wentest, return mourning to thy cities.

22How long, O disgraced daughter, wilt thou turn away? for the Lord has created safety for a new plantation: men shall go about in safety.

23For thus saith the Lord; They shall yet speak this word in the land of Juda, and in the cities thereof, when I shall turn his captivity; blessed be the Lord on his righteous holy mountain!

24And there shall be dwellers in the cities of Juda, and in all his land, together with the husbandman, and the shepherd shall go forth with the flock. 25For I have saturated every thirsting soul, and filled every hungry soul. 26Therefore I awake, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet to me.

27Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Juda with the seed of man, and the seed of beast. 28And it shall come to pass, that as I watched over them, to pull down, and to afflict, so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord.

29In those days they shall certainly not say, The fathers ate a sour grape, and the children's teeth were set on edge.

30But every one shall die in his own sin; and the teeth of him that eats the sour grape shall be set on edge.

A New Covenant

31Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: 32not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they abode not in my covenant, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord. 33For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will surely put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. 34And they shall not at all teach every one his fellow citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them: for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.

35Thus saith the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, the moon and the stars for a light by night, and makes a roaring in the sea, so that the waves thereof roar; the Lord Almighty is his name:

36if these ordinances cease from before me, saith the Lord, then shall the family of Israel cease to be a nation before me forever.

37Though the sky should be raised to a greater height, saith the Lord, and though the ground of the earth should be sunk lower beneath, yet I will not cast off the family of Israel, saith the Lord, for all that they have done.

38Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Anameel to the gate of the corner. 39And the measurement of it shall proceed in front of them as far as the hills of Gareb, and it shall be compassed with a circular wall of choice stones. 40And all the Asaremoth even to Nachal Kedron, as far as the corner of the horse-gate eastward, shall be holiness to the Lord; and it shall not fail any more, and shall not be destroyed for ever.