Isaiah 49:14-21

Modern English Version

¹⁴ But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
    and the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵ Can a woman forget her nursing child,
    and have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
    yet I will not forget.
¹⁶ See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
    your walls are continually before Me;
¹⁷ your builders hurry;
    your destroyers and those who devastated you shall depart from you.
¹⁸ Lift up your eyes and look all around;
    all these gather themselves together and come to you.
As I live, says the Lord,
    you shall surely put on all of them as ornaments
    and bind them on you as a bride does.

¹⁹ For your waste and your desolate places,
    and the land of your destruction,
shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants,
    and those who swallowed you up shall be far away.
²⁰ The children whom you shall have,
    after you have lost the others,
shall say again in your ears,
    “The place is too cramped for me;
    make room for me that I may dwell here.”
²¹ Then you shall say in your heart,
    “Who bore these for me,
since I have lost my children and am barren,
    a captive and a wanderer?
    And who has brought these up?
I was left alone;
    from where did these come?”