Isaiah 49:16-23

English Standard Version

¹⁶Behold, ^(A)I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before me.
¹⁷Your builders make haste;^[a]
    ^(B)your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.
¹⁸^(C)Lift up your eyes around and see;
    they all gather, they come to you.
^(D)As I live, declares the Lord,
    ^(E)you shall put them all on as an ornament;
    you shall bind them on as a bride does.

¹⁹“Surely your waste and your desolate places
    and your devastated land—
^(F)surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,
    and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
²⁰^(G)The children of your bereavement
    will yet say in your ears:
^(H)‘The place is too narrow for me;
    make room for me to dwell in.’
²¹Then you will say in your heart:
    ‘Who has borne me these?
^(I)I was bereaved and barren,
    exiled and put away,
    but who has brought up these?
Behold, I was left alone;
    from where have these come?’”

²²Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
    ^(J)and raise my signal to the peoples;
^(K)and they shall bring your sons in their arms,^[b]
    and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
²³^(L)Kings shall be your foster fathers,
    and their queens your nursing mothers.
^(M)With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
    and ^(N)lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
    ^(O)those who wait for me ^(P)shall not be put to shame.”