1. In another vision I saw a man with a measuring line in his hand.
2. “Where are you going?” I asked.“To measure Jerusalem,” he answered, “to see how long and how wide it is.”
3. Then I saw the angel who had been speaking to me step forward, and another angel came to meet him.
4. The first one said to the other, “Run and tell that young man with the measuring line that there are going to be so many people and so much livestock in Jerusalem that it will be too big to have walls.
5. The Lord has promised that he himself will be a wall of fire round the city to protect it and that he will live there in all his glory.”
6-7. The Lord said to his people, “I scattered you in all directions. But now, you exiles, escape from Babylonia and return to Jerusalem.
8. Anyone who strikes you strikes what is most precious to me.”So the Lord Almighty sent me with this message for the nations that had plundered his people: