“Go, declare to my people their evil deeds and to their children the iniquities that they have committed against me, so that they may tell their children’s children

“Thus says the Lord Almighty: Have I not entreated you as a father entreats his sons or a mother her daughters or a nurse her children,

so that you should be my people and I should be your God and that you should be my children and I should be your father?

and your sons will have no children, because with you they have neglected my commandment and have done what is evil in my sight.

I call to witness the gratitude of the people that is to come, whose children rejoice with gladness; though they do not see me with bodily eyes, yet with the spirit they will believe the things I have said.

The mother who bore them says to them, ‘Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken.

But now what can I do for you? For I am a widow and forsaken. Go, my children, and ask for mercy from the Lord.’

Now I call upon you, father, as a witness in addition to the mother of the children, because they would not keep my covenant,

Exhortation to Good Works

“Mother, embrace your children; bring them up with gladness, as does a dove; strengthen their feet, because I have chosen you, says the Lord.

Do not fear, mother of children, for I have chosen you, says the Lord.

and the same number of springs flowing with milk and honey and seven mighty mountains on which roses and lilies grow; by these I will fill your children with joy.

“Good nurse, nourish your children; strengthen their feet.

My power will protect you, so that your children may not see Gehenna.

“Rejoice, O mother, with your children, because I will deliver you, says the Lord.

Remember your children who sleep, because I will bring them out of the hiding places of the earth and will show mercy to them, for I am merciful, says the Lord Almighty.

Embrace your children until I come, and proclaim mercy to them, because my springs run over, and my grace will not fail.”

The number of your children, whom you desired, is now complete; implore the Lord’s authority that your people, who have been called from the beginning, may be made holy.”

“When those who lived on earth began to multiply, they produced children and peoples and many nations, and again they began to be more ungodly than were their ancestors.

He said to me, “Ask a woman’s womb, and say to it, ‘If you bear ten children, why one after another?’ Request it therefore to produce ten at one time.”

He replied to me, “Ask a woman who bears children, and she will tell you.

Children a year old shall speak with their voices, and pregnant women shall give birth to premature children at three and four months, and these shall live and leap about.

our harp has been laid low, our song has been silenced, and our rejoicing has been ended; the light of our lampstand has been put out, the ark of our covenant has been plundered, our holy things have been polluted, and the name by which we are called has been almost profaned; our children have suffered abuse, our priests have been burned to death, our Levites have gone into exile, our virgins have been defiled, and our wives have been ravished; our righteous men have been carried off, our little ones have been cast out, our young men have been enslaved and our strong men made powerless.

I will not spare them. Depart, you faithless children! Do not pollute my sanctuary.

Your children shall die of hunger, and you shall fall by the sword; your cities shall be wiped out, and all your people who are in the open country shall fall by the sword.

They shall carry your children away captive, plunder your wealth, and mar the glory of your face.