² but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.^{(A) 3} And I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, wearing sackcloth.”^(B)

⁴ Yet you have still a few persons in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes; they will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.^(A)

² God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?^{(A) 3} “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” ⁴ But what is the divine reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”^{(B) 5} So, too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. ⁶ But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.^[a](C)

²² And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved, but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.^(A)

A Promise for the Remnant of Israel

²² Yet survivors shall be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; they will come out to you. When you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it.^{(A) 23} They shall console you when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that it was not without cause that I did all that I have done in it, says the Lord God.^(B)

¹⁶ Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: Though I removed them far away among the nations and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while^[a] in the countries where they have gone.^{(A) 17} Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.^{(B) 18} When they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations.^{(C) 19} I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them;^[b] I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,^{(D) 20} so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.^(E)