Isaiah 49:21

¹⁵The LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

¹⁶The LORD says: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,” says the LORD. “They will come again from the land of the enemy. ¹⁷There is hope for your latter end,” says the LORD. “Your children will come again to their own territory.

²⁴For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

⁴You will not be called Forsaken any more, nor will your land be called Desolate any more; but you will be called Hephzibah,^[+] and your land Beulah;^[+] for the LORD delights in you, and your land will be married.

²⁶Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

¹How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave! ²She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies. ³Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her in her distress.

¹⁰Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

¹¹I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. ¹²Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

¹³For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry, ¹⁴if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. ¹⁵For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead?

¹⁶If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches. ¹⁷But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree,

³For you will spread out on the right hand and on the left; and your offspring will possess the nations and settle in desolate cities. ⁴“Don’t be afraid, for you will not be ashamed. Don’t be confounded, for you will not be disappointed. For you will forget the shame of your youth. You will remember the reproach of your widowhood no more. ⁵For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth. ⁶For the LORD has called you as a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even a wife of youth, when she is cast off,” says your God. ⁷“For a small moment I have forsaken you, but I will gather you with great mercies. ⁸In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness I will have mercy on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.

²Shake yourself from the dust! Arise, sit up, Jerusalem! Release yourself from the bonds of your neck, captive daughter of Zion!

²⁹“But immediately after the suffering^[+] of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;³⁰and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.