CHAPTER 31
1Thus said the LORD:
The people, survivors of the sword,
have found favor in the wilderness,
2From afar the LORD appeared to me:
With everlasting love do I love you,
therefore did I draw you in kindness.
3Yet will I rebuild you and you will be built,
O Virgin Israel,
Yet shall you deck yourself with your timbrels
and go out in the celebrants’ dance.
4Yet shall you plant vineyards on Samaria’s hills,
the planters shall plant and eat the fruit.
5For a day is to come when watchmen call out
on Mount Ephraim:
Rise and let us go up to Zion,
to the LORD our God.
6For thus said the LORD:
Sing out in joy for Jacob,
shout jubilant at the head of nations.
Proclaim, praise and say,
the LORD has rescued your people,
the remnant of Israel.
7I am about to bring them from the land of the north,
and I will gather them from the corners of the earth.
The blind and the lame are among them,
she with child and the woman in labor,
a great assembly shall come back here.
8In weeping shall they come,
in supplications will I lead them,
I will make them walk by brooks of water,
on a straight way where they shall not stumble,
For I am father to Israel,
And Ephraim is my firstborn.
9Listen to the word of the LORD, you nations,
and tell in the coastlands far off and say:
He who scattered Israel shall gather it
and guard it as a shepherd his flock.
10For the LORD has ransomed Jacob
and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
11And they shall come and sing gladly on Zion’s heights
and shall shine with the LORD’s bounty,
for the grain and the new wine and the oil,
and for the flocks and the cattle.
And their life-breath shall be like a watered garden,
and they shall no longer be in pain.
12Then shall the virgin rejoice in dance
and young men and elders together,
and I shall turn their mourning to gladness
and comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.
13And I will wet the priests’ gullet with richness,
and My people shall be sated with My bounty
—said the LORD.
14Thus said the LORD:
lament and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeps for her sons
She refuses to be comforted
for her sons, for they are no more.
15Thus said the LORD:
Hold back your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your labor—said the LORD—
and they shall come back from the enemy’s land,
16and there is hope for your future—said the LORD—
and the sons shall come back to their place.
17I have surely heard
Ephraim rocking with grief:
You chastised me and I was chastised
like an untrained calf.
Bring me back, that I may come back,
for You are the LORD my God.
18For after I turned back I repented,
and after I became aware I struck my thigh.
I was ashamed, indeed, disgraced,
for I bore the reproach of my youth.
19Is not Ephraim a dear son to Me,
a delightful child?
For even as I speak against him,
I surely recall him.
Therefore does My heart stir for him,
I will surely show him mercy, said the LORD.
20Set yourself markers,
put up road signs for yourself,
pay heed to the highway,
the way where you walked,
Turn back, O Virgin Israel.
Turn back to these towns of yours.
21How long will you slip away,
rebellious daughter?
For the LORD has created a new thing on earth—
the female goes round the male.
22Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: “Yet shall they say this thing in the land of Judah and in its towns when I restore their fortunes: May the LORD bless you, righteous abode, holy mountain. 23And farmers and those journeying with the flock shall dwell in Judah and all its towns together. 24For I have given full drink to the thirsty gullet, and every being in pain I have sated.” 25For this have I awoken and seen, and my sleep had been sweet to me. 26“Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with human seed and seed of beast. 27And as I was zealous over them to uproot and smash and lay ruin and destroy and harm, so will I be zealous over them to build and to plant, said the LORD. 28In those days, they shall no longer say:
and the sons’ teeth were blunted.
29Instead, a man shall die through his own crime, and every person eating unripe fruit, his teeth shall be blunted. 30Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will seal with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant. 31Not like the covenant that I sealed with their fathers on the day I held their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, as they broke My covenant, though I was master to them, said the LORD. 32But this is the covenant that I shall seal with the house of Israel after those days, said the LORD: I have put My teaching in their midst, and on their heart I have inscribed it, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. 33And they shall no longer teach each to his fellow man and each to his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD.’ For they shall all know Me from the least of them to their greatest, said the LORD, for I will forgive their crime, and their offense I will no more recall.”
34For thus said the LORD,
Who makes the sun for light by day,
for light by night,
roiling the sea, and its waves do roar
—the LORD of Armies is His name.
35Should these laws be set aside
from before Me? said the LORD.
Then Israel’s seed would cease
to be a nation before Me forever.
36Thus said the LORD:
Should the heavens be measured above
and the earth’s foundations fathomed below,
only then would I reject all Israel’s seed
for all that they did, said the LORD.
37Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when a city for the LORD shall be built from Hananel Tower to the Corner Gate. 38And the measuring line shall again go out before it to the Hill of Gareb and swing down to Goah. 39And all the Valley of Corpses and the Ashes and all the fields to the Kidron Wadi, to the corner of the Horse Gate, shall be holy to the LORD. It shall not again be uprooted and shall not be destroyed for all time.