¹At that time, the utterance of Yahweh, I will become God for all the clans of Israel, and they will become a people for me.

²Like this Yahweh said: The people, survivors of the sword, found favor in the wilderness; I am going to give Israel rest.

³From far away Yahweh appeared to me: With a love of forever I loved you; therefore I drew you with loyal love.

⁴Again I will build you, and you will be built, virgin of Israel; again you will adorn yourself with your tambourines, and go out in the dance of those who laugh.

⁵Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the planters will plant, and put them to common use.

⁶For there is a day when watchers on the hill country of Ephraim call out: Rise, and let us go up to Zion, to Yahweh our God.

⁷For like this Yahweh said: Cry aloud for joy for Jacob with gladness, and cry shrilly at the head of the nations; make it heard, praise, and say: Save, Yahweh, your people, the remnant of Israel.

⁸Look, I am bringing them from the land of the north, and I will gather them from the flanks of the land; among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant and the one giving birth together; a great company will return here.

⁹In weeping they will come, and with pleas I will bring them; I will lead them to wadis of water on a straight way; they will not stumble on it; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim, he is my firstborn.

¹⁰Hear the word of Yahweh, nations, and declare it in the coastlands far off, and say: The one who scattered Israel will gather him together, and keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.

¹¹For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he.

¹²They will come and cry out for joy on the height of Zion, and they will stream to the good things of Yahweh, upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon the young of the flock and the herd; and their being will be like a watered garden, and they will not go on to languish any more.

¹³Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and young men and old men together; and I will turn their mourning into joy, and I will comfort them, and I will gladden them out of their sorrow.

¹⁴And I will drench the being of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my good, the utterance of Yahweh.

¹⁵Like this Yahweh said: A sound is heard in Ramah, wailing, bitter weeping; Rachel is weeping for her sons, she refuses to be comforted for her sons, because they are not.

¹⁶Like this Yahweh said: Withhold your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, the utterance of Yahweh, and they will return from the land of the enemy.

¹⁷And there is hope for your latter end, the utterance of Yahweh, and children will return to their territory.

¹⁸I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself: You disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like a calf not trained; bring me back, and I will return, for you are Yahweh my God.

¹⁹For after my turning back I repented; and after I was instructed, I slapped my thigh. I was ashamed, and also humiliated, for I bore the reproach of my youth.

²⁰Is Ephraim a dear son to me? Or a child of delights? For as often as I speak of him, I surely remember him still; therefore my inward parts are in commotion for him; surely having compassion, I will have compassion on him, the utterance of Yahweh.

²¹Set up markers for yourself, place signposts for yourself; set your heart toward the highway, the way you went; return, virgin of Israel, return to these your cities.

²²How long will you turn this way and that, backturning daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the land: a female will surround a man.

²³Like this Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, said: Again they will say this word in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I turn back their captivity: May Yahweh bless you, abode of righteousness, mountain of holiness.

²⁴And Judah and all its cities will dwell in it together, farmers, and those who set out with the flock.

²⁵For I have saturated the exhausted being, and every being that languishes I have filled.

²⁶At this I woke up and looked, and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷Look, days are coming, the utterance of Yahweh, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humankind and the seed of livestock.

²⁸And it will be that just as I kept watch over them to pluck up and to pull down and to tear down and to destroy and to do harm, so I will keep watch over them to build and to plant, the utterance of Yahweh.

²⁹In those days they will not say again: The fathers ate sour grapes, and the teeth of the children grow dull.

³⁰Rather, each man will die for his guilt; every human being who eats the sour grape, his teeth will be dulled.

³¹Look, days are coming, the utterance of Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

³²Not like the covenant that I cut with their fathers on the day I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — my covenant, which they broke, though I married them, the utterance of Yahweh.

³³For this is the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, the utterance of Yahweh: I will put my instruction in their midst, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to me.

³⁴And they will no longer teach each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying: Know Yahweh, for all of them will know me, from their smallest to their greatest, the utterance of Yahweh; for I will forgive their guilt, and their sin I will remember no more.

³⁵Thus Yahweh has said, who gives the sun for light by day, the statutes of the moon and stars for light by night, who tosses the sea, and its waves roar; Yahweh of hosts is his name.

³⁶If these statutes depart from before me, the utterance of Yahweh, then also the seed of Israel will cease from being a nation before me all the days.

³⁷Thus Yahweh has said: If the skies above can be measured, and the foundations of the land below searched out, then I too will reject all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, the utterance of Yahweh.

³⁸Look, days are coming, the utterance of Yahweh, when the city will be rebuilt for Yahweh, from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.

³⁹And the measuring line will go out again in front of it, over the hill of Gareb, and it will turn about toward Goah.

⁴⁰And all the valley of the corpses and the fatty ashes, and all the fields as far as the wadi of Kidron, as far as the corner of the gate of the horses toward the sunrise, will be holiness to Yahweh; it will not be uprooted, and will not be torn down again, forever.