1 "At that time," {declares} Yahweh, "I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they will be to me a people."
2 Thus says Yahweh: "[The] people of [the] survivors of the sword found grace in the desert; Israel going to find their rest." 3 From afar Yahweh appeared to me, [saying], "I have loved you [with] an everlasting love. {Therefore} I have drawn you [with] loyal love. 4 I will again build you, and you will be built, O virgin Israel. You will again adorn yourself [with] your tambourines, and you will go forth in [the] dancing in a ring of [the] merrymakers. 5 You will again plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. [The] planters will plant, and they will enjoy [it]. 6 For there will be a day [when] watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim, 'Stand up, and let us go up [to] Zion, to Yahweh our God.'"
7 For thus says Yahweh, "Sing for joy for Jacob [with] gladness, and shout out for the head of the nations. Proclaim, praise, and say, 'Save, Yahweh, your people, the remnant of Israel.' 8 Look, I [am] going to bring them from [the] land of [the] north, and I will gather them from [the] remotest part of [the] earth. Among them [the] blind, and [the] lame, [those who are] pregnant, and [those who] give birth, together, a great assembly, they will return here. 9 With weeping they will come, and with pleas for mercy I will bring them; I will let them walk by streams of water in a straight path. They will not stumble in it, for I have become to Israel a father, and Ephraim, he [is] my firstborn." 10 Hear the word of Yahweh, nations, and declare in the coastlands from afar, and say, "The scatterer of Israel will gather him, and he will keep him as a shepherd his flock. 11 For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and he has redeemed him from [the] hand of [the] person {stronger} than he. 12 And they will come, and they will sing for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant over the goodness of Yahweh, over [the] grain, and over [the] wine, and over [the] olive oil, and over [the] young ones of [the] flock, and over [the] cattle. And their life will become like a well-watered garden, and they will never languish again." 13 "Then [the] young woman will rejoice in [the] dancing in a ring, and [the] young men and [the] old men together. And I will turn their mourning to jubilation, and I will comfort them, and I will gladden them from their sorrow. 14 And I will saturate the appetite of the priests [with] fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness," {declares} Yahweh.
15 Thus says Yahweh, "A voice [is] heard in Ramah, lamentation, [the] weeping of bitterness. Rachel [is] weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted because of her children, for they are no [more]."
16 Thus says Yahweh: "Restrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work," {declares} Yahweh, "and they will return from [the] land of [the] enemy. 17 And there is hope for your future," {declares} Yahweh, "and [your] children will return to their territory. 18 Indeed I heard Ephraim pitying themselves, 'You disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like a calf that is not trained. Bring me back and let me return, for you [are] Yahweh my God. 19 For after my turning back I repented, and after coming to understand I struck [my] thigh. I was ashamed and also humiliated, because I bore the disgrace of my youth.' 20 [Is] Ephraim my dear son, or [the] child of [my] delight? For {as often as} I have earnestly spoken against him, I still remember him. {Therefore} my bowels are turbulent for him, surely I will have compassion on him," {declares} Yahweh.
21 "Set up for yourself road markers, make for yourself signposts, set your {mind} to the main road, [the] road [by which] you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, return to these your cities. 22 {How long} will you waver, O unfaithful daughter? For Yahweh has created a new [thing] on the earth, a woman, she shelters a man."
23 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "They will again say these words in the land of Judah and in its towns at my restoring their fortunes, 'Yahweh bless you, settlement of righteousness, O hill of holiness.' 24 And Judah and all of its towns together will live in it, farmers and those who travel with the flocks. 25 For I will saturate [the] thirst of [the] weary, and every person [who] languishes I will replenish."
26 At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.
27 "Look, [the] days [are] coming," {declares} Yahweh, "and I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah [with the] seed of humankind, and [with the] seed of animals. 28 {And then} as I have watched over them to pull up, and to tear down, and to annihilate, and to destroy, and to do evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant," {declares} Yahweh. 29 "In those days they will say no longer, '{Parents} have eaten unripe fruit, and [the] teeth of [the] children {are set on edge}.'
30 {But} each will die because of his iniquity, {everyone} who eats the unripe fruit, their teeth will {be set on edge}.
31 Look, [the] days [are] coming," {declares} Yahweh, "and I will {make} a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I {made} with their ancestors on the day of my grasping [them] by their hand, bringing them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant that they themselves broke, though I myself was a master over them," {declares} Yahweh. 33 "But this [is] the covenant that I will {make} with the house of Israel after those days," {declares} Yahweh: "I will put my law in their inward parts and on their hearts I will write it, and I will be to them God, and they themselves will be to me people. 34 And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor, or each one his brother, {saying}, 'Know Yahweh,' for all of them will know me, from their {smallest} and up to their {greatest}," {declares} Yahweh, "for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will no longer remember."
35 Thus says Yahweh, who gives [the] sun for light by day, the regulations of [the] moon and [the] stars for light [by] night, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar--Yahweh of hosts [is] his name. 36 "If these rules would cease from {before me}," {declares} Yahweh, "also the offspring of Israel would cease from being a nation {before me} {forever}."
37 Thus says Yahweh, "If [the] heavens above can be measured, and [the] foundations of [the] earth below can be explored, also I will reject all the offspring of Israel because of all that they have done," {declares} Yahweh.
38 "Look, days [are] coming," {declares} Yahweh, "and the city will be rebuilt for Yahweh, from the Tower of Hananel [to] the Corner Gate. 39 And {the measuring line} will still go out immediately in front [of] it to the hill of Gareb, and it will turn [to] Goah. 40 And the whole of the valley [of] the corpses, and the ashes, and all the cultivated fields up to the wadi of Kidron, up to the corner of the Gate of the Horses [toward the] east [will be] holy to Yahweh. It will not be uprooted, and it will not be overthrown again {forever}."