This is what the LORD says:
“A voice was heard in Ramah
of painful crying and deep sadness:
Rachel crying for her children.
She refused to be comforted,
because her children are dead!”
But this is what the LORD says:
“Stop crying;
don’t let your eyes fill with tears.
You will be rewarded for your work!” says the LORD.
“The people will return from their enemy’s land.
So there is hope for you in the future,” says the LORD.
“Your children will return to their own land.
“I have heard Israel moaning:
‘LORD, you punished me, and I have learned my lesson.
I was like a calf that had never been trained.
Take me back so that I may come back.
You truly are the LORD my God.
LORD, after I wandered away from you,
I changed my heart and life.
After I understood,
I beat my breast with sorrow.
I was ashamed and disgraced,
because I suffered for the foolish things I did when I was young.’
“You know that Israel is my dear son,
The child I love.
Yes, I often speak against Israel,
but I still remember him.
I love him very much,
and I want to comfort him,” says the LORD.
“People of Israel, fix the road signs.
Put up signs to show you the way home.
Watch the road.
Pay attention to the road on which you travel.
People of Israel, come home,
come back to your towns.
You are an unfaithful daughter.
How long will you wander before you come home?
The LORD has made something new happen in the land:
A woman will go seeking a man.”
The LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “I will again do good things for the people of Judah. At that time the people in the land of Judah and its towns will again use these words: ‘May the LORD bless you, home of what is good, holy mountain.’ People in all the towns of Judah will live together in peace. Farmers and those who move around with their flocks will live together in peace. I will give rest and strength to those who are weak and tired.”
After hearing that, I, Jeremiah, woke up and looked around. My sleep had been very pleasant.
The LORD says, “The time is coming when I will help the families of Israel and Judah and their children and animals to grow. In the past I watched over Israel and Judah, to pull them up and tear them down, to destroy them and bring them disaster. But now I will watch over them to build them up and make them strong,” says the LORD.
“At that time people will no longer say:
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and that caused the children to grind their teeth from the sour taste.’
Instead, each person will die for his own sin; the person who eats sour grapes will grind his own teeth.
“Look, the time is coming,” says the LORD,
“when I will make a new agreement
with the people of Israel
and the people of Judah.
It will not be like the agreement
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of Egypt.
I was a husband to them,
but they broke that agreement,” says the LORD.
“This is the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the LORD:
“I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the LORD,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the LORD.
“I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
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