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

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

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

4For I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: you shall yet take your timbrel, and go forth with the party of them that make merry.

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

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

7For thus says the Lord to Jacob; Rejoice you⌃, and exult over the head of the nations: make proclamation, and praise you⌃: 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 firstborn.

10Hear the words of the Lord, you⌃ 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 says 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 says the Lord; Let your voice cease from weeping, and your eyes from your tears: for their is a reward for your works; and they shall return from the land of your enemies.

17There shall be an dwelling home for your children.

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

19For after my captivity I repented; and after I knew, I groaned for the day of shame, and showed you 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, says the Lord.

21Prepare yourself, O Sion; execute vengeance; look to your ways: return, O virgin of Israel, by the way by which you went, return mourning to your cities.

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

23For thus says 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 saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

27Therefore, behold, the days come, says 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, says 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.

31Behold, the days come, says 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, says the Lord.

33For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says 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 says 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, says 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, says the Lord, and though the ground of the earth should be sunk lower beneath, yet I will not cast off the family of Israel, says the Lord, for all that they have done.

38Behold, the days come, says 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.