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Hope for Israel and Judah

“In those coming days,”
    says the Lord,
“the people of Israel will return home
    together with the people of Judah.
They will come weeping
    and seeking the Lord their God.
They will ask the way to Jerusalem[a]
    and will start back home again.
They will bind themselves to the Lord
    with an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten.

“My people have been lost sheep.
    Their shepherds have led them astray
    and turned them loose in the mountains.
They have lost their way
    and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.
All who found them devoured them.
    Their enemies said,
‘We did nothing wrong in attacking them,
    for they sinned against the Lord,
their true place of rest,
    and the hope of their ancestors.’

“But now, flee from Babylon!
    Leave the land of the Babylonians.
Like male goats at the head of the flock,
    lead my people home again.
For I am raising up an army
    of great nations from the north.
They will join forces to attack Babylon,
    and she will be captured.
The enemies’ arrows will go straight to the mark;
    they will not miss!
10 Babylonia[b] will be looted
    until the attackers are glutted with loot.
    I, the Lord, have spoken!

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Footnotes

  1. 50:5 Hebrew Zion; also in 50:28.
  2. 50:10 Or Chaldea.

In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together; they shall come weeping as they seek the Lord their God.(A) They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, and they shall come and join themselves to the Lord by an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold.(B) All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, “We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the Lord, the true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.”(C)

Flee from Babylon, and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be like male goats leading the flock.(D) For I am going to stir up and bring against Babylon a company of great nations from the land of the north, and they shall array themselves against her; from there she shall be taken. Their arrows are like the arrows of a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed.(E) 10 Chaldea shall be plundered; all who plunder her shall be sated, says the Lord.

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