Jeremiah 29:11

⁸“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD. ⁹“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater; ¹¹so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do. ¹²For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.

¹¹The counsel of the LORD stands fast forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

¹²But they don’t know the thoughts of the LORD, neither do they understand his counsel; for he has gathered them like the sheaves to the threshing floor.

⁵Many, LORD, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to you. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be counted.

¹³But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? What his soul desires, even that he does.

²⁶It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

¹⁰I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. I say: My counsel will stand, and I will do all that I please. ¹¹I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it.

¹¹“‘For the Lord GOD says: “Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. ¹²As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. ¹³I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country. ¹⁴I will feed them with good pasture, and their fold will be on the mountains of the height of Israel. There they will lie down in a good fold. They will feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down,” says the Lord GOD. ¹⁶“I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them in justice.”’

¹⁷“As for you, O my flock, the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, the rams and the male goats. ¹⁸Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture? And to have drunk of the clear waters, but must you foul the residue with your feet? ¹⁹As for my sheep, they eat that which you have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which you have fouled with your feet.’

²⁰“Therefore the Lord GOD says to them: ‘Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. ²¹Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad, ²²therefore I will save my flock, and they will no more be a prey. I will judge between sheep and sheep. ²³I will set up one shepherd over them, and he will feed them, even my servant David. He will feed them, and he will be their shepherd. ²⁴I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them. I, the LORD, have spoken it.

²⁵“‘I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land. They will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. ²⁶I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. I will cause the shower to come down in its season. There will be showers of blessing. ²⁷The tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them. ²⁸They will no more be a prey to the nations, neither will the animals of the earth devour them; but they will dwell securely, and no one will make them afraid. ²⁹I will raise up to them a plantation for renown, and they will no more be consumed with famine in the land, and not bear the shame of the nations any more. ³⁰They will know that I, the LORD, their God am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord GOD. ³¹You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are men, and I am your God,’ says the Lord GOD.”

¹²Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, you backsliding Israel,’ says the LORD; ‘I will not look in anger on you, for I am merciful,’ says the LORD. ‘I will not keep anger forever. ¹³Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the LORD your God, and have scattered your ways to the strangers under every green tree, and you have not obeyed my voice,’” says the LORD. ¹⁴“Return, backsliding children,” says the LORD, “for I am a husband to you. I will take one of you from a city, and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. ¹⁵I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶It will come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says the LORD, “they will no longer say, ‘the ark of the LORD’s covenant!’ It will not come to mind. They won’t remember it. They won’t miss it, nor will another be made. ¹⁷At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The LORD’s Throne;’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the LORD’s name, to Jerusalem. They will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

¹⁹“But I said, ‘How I desire to put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the armies of the nations!’ and I said, ‘You shall call me “My Father”, and shall not turn away from following me.’

¹“At that time,” says the LORD, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”

²The LORD says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.”

³The LORD appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness. ⁴I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry. ⁵Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will enjoy its fruit. ⁶For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Arise! Let’s go up to Zion to the LORD our God.’”

⁷For the LORD says, “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, ‘LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’ ⁸Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company. ⁹They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn. ¹⁰“Hear the LORD’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ ¹¹For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. ¹²They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of the LORD, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all. ¹³Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. ¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says the LORD.

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. ¹⁸“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned, for you are the LORD my God. ¹⁹Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’ ²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says the LORD. ²¹“Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities. ²²How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”

²³The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘The LORD bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’ ²⁴Judah and all its cities will dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks. ²⁵For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

²⁶On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal. ²⁸It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” says the LORD. ²⁹“In those days they will say no more, “‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’

³⁰But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.

³¹“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, ³²not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the LORD. ³³“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.