The Remnant Will Find Joy
Jeremiah 31 “At that time,” says YHWH, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”YHWH says, “The people who survive the sword found favor in the wilderness. Israel, when it went to find rest.”
YHWH appeared of old to me, saying,
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. I will build you again, and you will be built, Virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry. Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will enjoy its fruit. For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Y’all get up! Let’s go up to Zion to YHWH our God.’”For YHWH says,
“Y’all sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Y’all proclaim, praise, and say, ‘YHWH, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’ Look! 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. They 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.“Y’all listen to the word of YHWH, O nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Y’all are to say, ‘The one who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ For YHWH has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of YHWH, 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. Then 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. I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says YHWH.
YHWH 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.”YHWH says:
“Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,” says YHWH. “They will come again from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your latter end,” says YHWH. “Your children will come again to their own territory.“I have heard-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 YHWH my God. Surely 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.’ Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still remember-remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will have compassion-compassion on him,” says YHWH.
“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. How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For YHWH has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a man.”
YHWH Almighty, 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: ‘YHWH bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’ Judah and all its cities will dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”
On this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been pleasant to me.
“Look, the days are coming,” says YHWH, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal. It 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 YHWH. “In those days they will say no more,
“‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Whoever eats the sour grapes, their teeth will be set on edge.
The New Covenant
“The days are coming,” says YHWH, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; the covenant of mine that they broke, though I was a husband to them,” says YHWH. “Instead, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says YHWH:
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbors and brothers, saying, ‘Y’all must know YHWH.’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them,” says YHWH, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” YHWH, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar— YHWH Almighty is his name, says: “If these ordinances depart from before me,” says YHWH, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.” YHWH says: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” says YHWH.“Look, the days are coming,” says YHWH, “when the city will be built to YHWH from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner. The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn toward Goah. The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, will be holy to YHWH. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever.”