¹² This is what the Lord says:
Your injury is incurable;
    your illness is grave.
¹³ No one comes to your aid;
    no one attends to your wound;
        your disease is incurable.
¹⁴ All your lovers disregard you;
    they write you off as a lost cause,
    because I have dealt harshly with you
        as an enemy would,
    because your guilt is great
            and your sins are many.
¹⁵ Why cry out for relief from your pain?
    Your wound is incurable.
I have done these things to you,
    because your guilt is great
        and your sins are many.

¹⁶ Yet all who ravage you will be ravaged;
    all who oppress you will go into exile.
Those who rob you will be robbed,
    and all who plunder you will be plundered.
¹⁷ I will restore your health,
    and I will heal your wounds,
        declares the Lord,
    because you were labeled an outcast,
        “Zion, the lost cause.”

¹⁸ The Lord proclaims:
I will restore Jacob’s tents
    and have pity on their birthplace.
Their city will be rebuilt on its ruins
    and the palace in its rightful place.
¹⁹ There will be laughter
    and songs of thanks.
I will add to their numbers
    so they don’t dwindle away.
I will honor them
    so they aren’t humiliated.
²⁰ Their children will thrive as they did long ago,
    and their community will be established before me.
        I will punish their oppressors.
²¹ They will have their own leader;
    their ruler will come from among them.
I will let him approach me,
    and he will draw near.
Who would dare approach me
    unless I let them come?
        declares the Lord.
²² You will be my people,
    and I will be your God.

¹⁶     because the Lord will rebuild Zion;
    he will be seen there in his glory.
¹⁷ God will turn to the prayer of the impoverished;
    he won’t despise their prayers.

¹⁸ Let this be written down for the next generation
    so that people not yet created will praise the Lord:
¹⁹     The Lord looked down from his holy summit,
        surveyed the earth from heaven,
²⁰         to hear the prisoners’ groans,
        to set free those condemned to death,
²¹         that the Lord’s name may be declared in Zion
        and his praise declared in Jerusalem,
²²         when all people are gathered together—
        all kingdoms—to serve the Lord.