Study Desk

Your children hasten; your destroyers and those who laid you waste depart from you.

Yet the children born when you were bereaved will say in your hearing, "The place is too cramped for me; make room for me so that I can dwell."

But thus says Yahweh: "Indeed a captive of the mighty shall be taken, and the war-booty of the tyrant shall be rescued, for I myself will dispute with your opponent, and I myself will save your children.

There is no one who guides her among all the children she has borne, and there is no one who grasps her by the hand among all the children she raised.

Your children have fainted; they lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a snare, those who are full of the wrath of Yahweh, the rebuke of your God.

"Sing for joy, barren woman; who has not borne! Burst forth into rejoicing and rejoice, she who has not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman are more than the children of the married woman," says Yahweh.

And all your children shall be pupils of Yahweh, and the peace of your children shall be great.

"But you, come near here, you children of a soothsayer, offspring of an adulterer and she who commits fornication.

At whom do you make fun? At whom do you open your mouth and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, offspring of deception,

who burn with lust among the oaks, under every leafy tree, who slaughter children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

"And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says Yahweh: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have placed in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of your children's children," says Yahweh, "from now on and forever."

Because the coastlands wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish are first to bring your children from afar, their silver and gold with them, for the name of Yahweh your God, and for the holy one of Israel, because he has glorified you.

And the children of those who oppressed you shall come to you bending low, and all those who treated you disrespectfully shall bow down at the soles of your feet. And they shall call you the city of Yahweh, Zion of the holy one of Israel.

And he said, "Surely my people are children; they will not break faith." And he became a Savior to them.

Who has heard anything like this? Who has seen anything like these things? Can a land be born in one day? Or can a nation be born in a moment? Yet when she was in labor, Zion indeed gave birth to her children.

Therefore I again bring a lawsuit against you," declares Yahweh, "and with your children I bring a lawsuit.

"For in vain I have struck your children. They accepted no discipline. Your sword devoured your prophets, like a ravening lion.

"Return, apostate children," declares Yahweh. "For I am your master, and I will take you one from a city and two from a clan, and I will bring you to Zion.

Then I thought, ‘How I would set you among the children, and I would give you a land of desire, an inheritance of the glory of the hosts of nations.' And I thought, ‘You would call me, "My father," and you would not turn back from behind me.'

"A voice is heard on the barren heights, the weeping of the pleas for mercy of the children of Israel, because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God.