16. Stop your cryingand wipe away your tears.All that you have done for your childrenwill not go unrewarded;they will return from the enemy's land.
17. There is hope for your future;your children will come back home.I, the Lord, have spoken.
18. “I hear the people of Israel say in grief,‘Lord, we were like an untamed animal,but you taught us to obey.Bring us back;we are ready to return to you,the Lord our God.
19. We turned away from you,but soon we wanted to return.After you had punished us,we hung our heads in grief.We were ashamed and disgraced,because we sinned when we were young.’
20. “Israel, you are my dearest son,the child I love best.Whenever I mention your name,I think of you with love.My heart goes out to you;I will be merciful.
21. Set up signs and mark the road;find again the way by which you left.Come back, people of Israel,come home to the towns you left.
22. How long will you hesitate, faithless people?I have created something new and different,as different as a woman protecting a man.”
23. The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, “When I restore the people to their land, they will once again say in the land of Judah and in its towns,‘May the Lord bless the sacred hill of Jerusalem,the holy place where he lives.’
24. People will live in Judah and in all its towns, and there will be farmers, and shepherds with their flocks.
25. I will refresh those who are weary and will satisfy with food everyone who is weak from hunger.
26. So then, people will say, ‘I went to sleep and woke up refreshed.’
27. “I, the Lord, say that the time is coming when I will fill the land of Israel and Judah with people and animals.
28. And just as I took care to uproot, to pull down, to overthrow, to destroy, and to demolish them, so I will take care to plant them and to build them up.
29. When that time comes, people will no longer say,‘The parents ate the sour grapes,But the children got the sour taste.’
30. Instead, all those who eat sour grapes will have their own teeth set on edge; and they will all die because of their own sin.”
31. The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
32. It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to them, they did not keep that covenant.
33. The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34. None of them will have to teach his fellow-citizen to know the Lord, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
35. The Lord provides the sun for light by day,the moon and the stars to shine at night.He stirs up the sea and makes it roar;his name is the Lord Almighty.