Isaiah 49:17–23

¹⁷Your builders outdo your destroyers,^x

and those who laid you waste go away from you.^*

¹⁸Lift up your eyes all around and see;

they all gather; they come to you.

As I live, says the Lord,

you shall put all of them on like an ornament,

and like a bride you shall bind them on.^*

¹⁹For your wastelands, your desolate places,

and your devastated land—

now you will be too crowded for your inhabitants,

and those who swallowed you up will be far away.^*

²⁰The children born in the time of your bereavement

will yet say in your hearing:

“The place is too crowded for me;

make room for me to settle.”^*

²¹Then you will say in your heart,

“Who has borne me these?

I was bereaved and barren,

exiled and put away—

so who has reared these?

I was left all alone—

where, then, have these come from?”^*

²²Thus says the Lord God:

I will soon lift up my hand to the nations

and raise my signal to the peoples,

and they shall bring your sons in their bosom,

and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.^*

²³Kings shall be your foster fathers

and their queens your nursing mothers.

With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you

and lick the dust of your feet.

Then you will know that I am the Lord;

those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.^*