3. Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.
4. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the houses of this city and the palaces of Judah’s kings, the ones torn down for defense against the siege ramps and the sword:
5. The people coming to fight the Chaldeans will fill the houses with the corpses of their own men that I strike down in My wrath and rage. I have hidden My face from this city because of all their evil.
6. Yet I will certainly bring health and healing to it and will indeed heal them. I will let them experience the abundance of peace and truth.
7. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and of Israel and will rebuild them as in former times.
8. I will purify them from all the wrongs they have committed against Me, and I will forgive all the wrongs they have committed against Me, rebelling against Me.
9. This city will bear on My behalf a name of joy, praise, and glory before all the nations of the earth, who will hear of all the good I will do for them. They will tremble with awe because of all the good and all the peace I will bring about for them.
10. “This is what the Lord says: In this place, which you say is a ruin, without man or beast — that is, in Judah’s cities and Jerusalem’s streets that are a desolation without man, without inhabitant, and without beast — there will be heard again
11. a sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride, and the voice of those saying,Praise the Lord of Hosts,for the Lord is good;His faithful love endures foreveras they bring thank offerings to the temple of the Lord. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as in former times, says the Lord.
12. “This is what the Lord of Hosts says: In this desolate place — without man or beast — and in all its cities there will once more be a grazing land where shepherds may rest flocks.
13. The flocks will again pass under the hands of the one who counts them in the cities of the hill country, the cities of the Judean foothills, the cities of the Negev, the land of Benjamin — the cities surrounding Jerusalem and Judah’s cities, says the Lord.