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12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,
    for the fruitful vine.
13 Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land;
    yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
14 For the palace will be forsaken.
    The populous city will be deserted.
    The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever,
    a delight for wild donkeys,
    a pasture of flocks,
15 until the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
    and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
    and the fruitful field is considered a forest.

16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness;
    and righteousness will remain in the fruitful field.
17 The work of righteousness will be peace,
    and the effect of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever.
18 My people will live in a peaceful habitation,
    in safe dwellings,
    and in quiet resting places,
19 though hail flattens the forest,
    and the city is leveled completely.
20 Blessed are you who sow beside all waters,
    who send out the feet of the ox and the donkey.

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12 Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms
    and your fruitful grapevines.
13 For your land will be overgrown with thorns and briers.
    Your joyful homes and happy towns will be gone.
14 The palace and the city will be deserted,
    and busy towns will be empty.
Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze
    in the empty forts[a] and watchtowers
15 until at last the Spirit is poured out
    on us from heaven.
Then the wilderness will become a fertile field,
    and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.

16 Justice will rule in the wilderness
    and righteousness in the fertile field.
17 And this righteousness will bring peace.
    Yes, it will bring quietness and confidence forever.
18 My people will live in safety, quietly at home.
    They will be at rest.
19 Even if the forest should be destroyed
    and the city torn down,
20 the Lord will greatly bless his people.
    Wherever they plant seed, bountiful crops will spring up.
    Their cattle and donkeys will graze freely.

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Footnotes

  1. 32:14 Hebrew the Ophel.