1. Thus says the Lord, I brought this people out of bondage, and I gave them my commandments by my servants the prophets; whom they would not hear, but set my counsels at nothing.
2. The mother that bare them says to them, go your way, O my children; for I am a widow and forsaken.
3. I brought you up with gladness, and with sorrow and heaviness have I lost you: for you⌃ have sinned before the Lord God, and done that which is evil before me.
4. But what shall I now do to you? for I am a widow and forsaken: go your way, O my children, and ask mercy of the Lord.
5. As for me, O father, I call upon you for a witness over the mother of these children, because they would not keep my covenant,
6. that you bring them to confusion, and their mother to a spoil, that there may be no offspring of them.
7. Let them be scattered abroad among the heathen, let their names be blotted out of the earth: for they have despised my covenant.
8. Woe to you, Assur, you that hide the unrighteous with you! O you wicked nation, remember what I did to Sodom and Gomorrah;
9. whose land lies in clods of pitch and heaps of ashes: even so also will I do to them that have not hearkened to me, says the Lord Almighty.
10. Thus says the Lord to Esdras, Tell my people that I will give them the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I would have given to Israel.
11. Their glory also will I take to me, and give these the everlasting tabernacles, which I had prepared for them.
12. They shall have the tree of life for an ointment of sweet savor; they shall neither labor, nor be weary.
13. Ask, and you⌃ shall receive: pray for few days to you, that they may be shortened: the kingdom is already prepared for you: watch.
14. Take heaven and earth to witness, take them to witness; for I have given up the evil, and created the good: for I live, says the Lord.
15. Mother, embrace your children; I will bring them out with gladness like a dove; establish their feet; for I have chosen you, says the Lord.
16. And those that be dead will I raise up again from their places, and bring them out from their tombs: for I have known my name in them.
17. Fear not, you mother of the children: for I have chosen you, says the Lord.
18. For your help will I send my servants Esaias and Jeremy, after whose counsel I have sanctified and prepared for you twelve trees laden with various fruits,