Isaiah 49:8–21

⁸This is what the Lord says:

I will answer you in a time of favor,

and I will help you in the day of salvation.^l

I will keep you, and I will appoint you

to be a covenant for the people,^m

to restore the land,

to make them possess the desolate inheritances,

⁹saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”ⁿ

and to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”

They will feed along the pathways,

and their pastures will be on all the barren heights.^o

¹⁰They will not hunger or thirst,

the scorching heat or sun will not strike them;

for their compassionate one will guide them,

and lead them to springs.^p

¹¹I will make all my mountains into a road,

and my highways will be raised up.^q

¹²See, these will come from far away,

from the north and from the west,^Cr

and from the land of Sinim.^DE

¹³Shout for joy, you heavens!^s

Earth, rejoice!

Mountains break into joyful shouts!

For the Lord has comforted his people,^t

and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.^u

ZION REMEMBERED

¹⁴Zion says, “The Lord has abandoned me;

the Lord has forgotten me!”

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

or lack compassion for the child of her womb?

Even if these forget,

yet I will not forget you.

¹⁶Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;^v

your walls are continually before me.

¹⁷Your builders^F hurry;

those who destroy and devastate you will leave you.

¹⁸Look up, and look around.

They all gather together; they come to you.^a

As I live”—

this is the Lord’s declaration—

“you will wear all your children^A as jewelry,

and put them on as a bride does.

¹⁹For your waste and desolate places

and your land marked by ruins

will now be indeed too small for the inhabitants,^b

and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

²⁰Yet as you listen, the children

that you have been deprived of will say,

‘This place is too small for me;

make room for me so that I may settle.’^c

²¹Then you will say within yourself,

‘Who fathered these for me?

I was deprived of my children and unable to conceive,

exiled and wandering—

but who brought them up?

See, I was left by myself—

but these, where did they come from?’ ”^B