'People' in the Bible

and he said to the second angel, “Run, speak to that young man, saying, ‘Jerusalem will be inhabited [like villages] without walls [spreading out into the open country] because of the great number of people and livestock in it.

Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be My people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know (recognize, understand fully) that the Lord of hosts has sent Me to you.

‘What are you, O great mountain [of obstacles]? Before Zerubbabel [who will rebuild the temple] you will become a plain (insignificant)! And he will bring out the capstone [of the new temple] with loud shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’”

Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to seek the favor of the Lord,

“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years [that you were in exile], was it actually for Me that you fasted?

Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘If it is difficult in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days [in which this comes to pass], will it also be difficult in My sight?’ declares the Lord of hosts.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Behold, I am going to save My people from the east country and from the west,

and I will bring them home and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God in truth (faithfulness) and in righteousness.’

But now [in this time since you began to build] I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ declares the Lord of hosts.

‘For there the seed will produce peace and prosperity; the vine will yield its fruit, and the ground will produce its increase, and the heavens will give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit and possess all these things.

So many peoples and powerful nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to ask the Lord for His favor.’

And a mongrel race will live in Ashdod,And I will put an end to the pride and arrogance of the Philistines.

As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you [My chosen people, the covenant that was sealed with blood]I have freed your prisoners from the waterless pit.

And the Lord their God shall save them on that dayAs the flock of His people;For they are like the [precious] jewels of a crown,Displayed and glittering in His land.

For the teraphim (household idols) speak wickedness (emptiness, worthlessness),And the diviners see lying visionsAnd tell false dreams;They comfort in vain.Therefore the people wander like sheep,They are afflicted and suffer because there is no shepherd.

“And they will pass through the sea of distress and anxiety [with the Lord leading His people, as at the Red Sea]And He will strike the waves in the sea,So that all the depths of the Nile will dry up;And the pride of Assyria will be brought downAnd the scepter [of the taskmasters] of Egypt will pass away.

For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into the hand of another and into the hands of his [foreign] king. And the enemy will strike the land, and I will not rescue the people from their hand.”

“And I will bring the third part through the fire,Refine them as silver is refined,And test them as gold is tested.They will call on My name,And I will listen and answer them;I will say, ‘They are My people,’And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured and the houses plundered and the women ravished; and half of the city will be exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.