God Is Gracious and Just

18 Therefore the Lord 1alongs to be gracious to you,

And therefore He 2waits on bhigh to have compassion on you.

For the Lord is a cGod of justice;

How blessed are all those who 3dlong for Him.

19 1O people in Zion, ainhabitant in Jerusalem, you will bweep no longer. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will canswer you.

20 Although the Lord has given you abread of privation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher will no longer bhide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher.

21 Your ears will hear a word behind you, “1This is the away, walk in it,” whenever you bturn to the right or to the left.

22 And you will defile your graven aimages overlaid with silver, and your molten aimages plated with gold. You will scatter them as an impure thing, and say to 1them, “bBe gone!”

23 Then He will agive you rain for 1the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be 2rich and 3plenteous; on that day byour livestock will graze in a roomy pasture.

24 Also the oxen and the donkeys which work the ground will eat salted fodder, which 1has been awinnowed with shovel and fork.

25 On every lofty mountain and on aevery high hill there will be 1streams running with water on the day of the great bslaughter, when the towers fall.

26 aThe light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day bthe Lord binds up the cfracture of His people and dheals the bruise 1He has inflicted.