⁶ For the Lord has called you back from your grief—
    as though you were a young wife abandoned by her husband,”
    says your God.
⁷ “For a brief moment I abandoned you,
    but with great compassion I will take you back.
⁸ In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while.
    But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
    says the Lord, your Redeemer.

⁹ Wake up, wake up, O Lord! Clothe yourself with strength!
    Flex your mighty right arm!
Rouse yourself as in the days of old
    when you slew Egypt, the dragon of the Nile.^[a]
10 Are you not the same today,
    the one who dried up the sea,
making a path of escape through the depths
    so that your people could cross over?

¹² After all this, Lord, must you still refuse to help us?
    Will you continue to be silent and punish us?

¹⁴ Yet Jerusalem^[a] says, “The Lord has deserted us;
    the Lord has forgotten us.”

¹⁵ “Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child?
    Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?
But even if that were possible,
    I would not forget you!
¹⁶ See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.
    Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.

²⁷ O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
    O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
²⁸ Have you never heard?
    Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
    No one can measure the depths of his understanding.

⁷ Has the Lord rejected me forever?
    Will he never again be kind to me?
⁸ Is his unfailing love gone forever?
    Have his promises permanently failed?
⁹ Has God forgotten to be gracious?
    Has he slammed the door on his compassion? Interlude

¹⁰ And I said, “This is my fate;
    the Most High has turned his hand against me.”