"Thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'If you will walk in my ways, and if you will keep my requirements, then you will judge my house, and you will also guard my courtyards, and I will give to you passageways among these that are standing here.

'And I scattered them with a wind among all the nations that they had not known; the land was made desolate behind them-- no one crossing through [it] or returning--and they made the desirable land a desolation.'"

{And then}, just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you will be a blessing. You must not be afraid; let your hands be strong!'"

Though I sow them among the nations, in the distant places they will remember me, and they will stay alive with their children, and they will return.

" 'On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a pan of fire among [sticks of] wood, and like a torch of fire among stalks of grain, and they will devour to [the] right and to [the] left all the surrounding peoples, and Jerusalem will be inhabited again [in] its place, in Jerusalem.

On that day Yahweh will put a shield around the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who stumbles among them on that day will be like David, and the house of David [will be] like God, like the angel of Yahweh, {before them}.