Return, rebellious children, declares the Lord, for I’m your husband. I’ll gather you— one from a city and two from a tribe— and bring you back to Zion.

At that time, they will call Jerusalem the Lord’s throne, and all nations will gather there to honor the Lord’s name. No longer will they follow their own willful and evil hearts.

Disaster approaches

Announce in Judah, in Jerusalem proclaim, sound the alarm throughout the land, cry out and say, “Gather together! Let’s flee to the fortified towns!”

But I’m filled with the Lord’s rage and am tired of holding it in. Pour it out on the children in the streets and on the youths gathered together; husband with wife will be trapped, as will those old and gray.

The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven. And to offend me all the more, they pour out drink offerings to foreign gods.

and exposed to the sun, the moon, and the whole heavenly forces, which they have loved and served and which they have followed, consulted, and worshipped. Their bones won’t be gathered for reburial but will become like refuse lying on the ground.

My inheritance has become like a bird of prey, surrounded and attacked. Go, gather all the wild animals for the feast.

Like a partridge gathering a brood that is not its own, so are those who acquire their wealth corruptly. By midlife it will be gone; afterward they will look like fools.

I myself will gather the few remaining sheep from all the countries where I have driven them. I will bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply.

I will be present for you, declares the Lord, and I will end your captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have scattered you, and I will bring you home after your long exile, declares the Lord.

I’m going to bring them back from the north; I will gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the disabled, expectant mothers and those in labor; a great throng will return here.

Listen to the Lord’s word, you nations, and announce it to the distant islands: The one who scattered Israel will gather them and keep them safe, as a shepherd his flock.

I will gather them from all the countries where I have scattered them in my fierce anger and rage. I will bring them back to this place to live securely.

So they left the places where they had been scattered and returned to the land, to Gedaliah at Mizpah. There they gathered large amounts of grapes and summer fruits.

Still Johanan, Kareah’s son, met with Gedaliah secretly at Mizpah and said to him, “Let me go and kill Ishmael, Nethaniah’s son; no one needs to knows about this matter. Otherwise, he’ll kill you, and all the Judeans who have gathered around you will be scattered, and the few who are left will perish.”

I’m the one who will terrify you from every side, declares the Lord of heavenly forces. Every one of you will be scattered about; no one will gather those who fled.