For long ago I broke your yoke;
I tore off your chains.
You insisted, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill
and under every green tree
you lie down like a prostitute.

In the days of King Josiah the Lord asked me, “Have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself there.

Return, you faithless children.
I will heal your unfaithfulness.
“Here we are, coming to You,
for You are the Lord our God.

“I am about to send for many fishermen”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and they will fish for them. Then I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and out of the clefts of the rocks,

Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me, and I will be saved,
for You are my praise.

Then people will come from the cities of Judah and from the area around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the Judean foothills, from the hill country and from the Negev bringing burnt offerings and sacrifice, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the Lord.

“Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and said to all the people of Judah, ‘This is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become ruins,
and the temple mount a forested hill.’

No one takes up the case for your sores.
There is no healing for you.

But I will bring you health
and will heal you of your wounds—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
for they call you Outcast,
Zion whom no one cares about.

For there will be a day when watchmen will call out
in the hill country of Ephraim,
“Get up, let’s go up to Zion,
to Yahweh our God!”

A measuring line will once again stretch out straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn toward Goah.

Fields will be purchased with silver, the transaction written on a scroll and sealed, and witnesses will be called on in the land of Benjamin, in the areas surrounding Jerusalem, and in Judah’s cities—the cities of the hill country, the cities of the Judean foothills, and the cities of the Negev—because I will restore their fortunes.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Yet I will certainly bring health and healing to it and will indeed heal them. I will let them experience the abundance of peace and truth.

The flocks will again pass under the hands of the one who counts them in the cities of the hill country, the cities of the Judean foothills, the cities of the Negev, the land of Benjamin—the cities surrounding Jerusalem and Judah’s cities, says the Lord.

My people are lost sheep;
their shepherds have led them astray,
guiding them the wrong way in the mountains.
They have wandered from mountain to hill;
they have forgotten their resting place.

I will return Israel to his grazing land,
and he will feed on Carmel and Bashan;
he will be satisfied
in the hill country of Ephraim and of Gilead.

We tried to heal Babylon,
but she could not be healed.
Abandon her!
Let each of us go to his own land,
for her judgment extends to the sky
and reaches as far as the clouds.

One pillar was 27 feet tall, had a circumference of 18 feet, was hollow—four fingers thick—