8. “ ‘But you, mountains of Israel, will grow branches and fruit for my people, who will soon come home.
9. I am concerned about you; I am on your side. You will be plowed, and seed will be planted in you.
10. I will increase the number of people who live on you, all the people of Israel. The cities will have people living in them, and the ruins will be rebuilt.
11. I will increase the number of people and animals living on you. They will grow and have many young. You will have people living on you as you did before, and I will make you better off than at the beginning. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
12. I will cause my people Israel to walk on you and own you, and you will belong to them. You will never again take their children away from them.
13. “ ‘This is what the Lord God says: People say about you, “You eat people and take children from your nation.”
14. But you will not eat people anymore or take away the children, says the Lord God.
15. I will not make you listen to insults from the nations anymore; you will not suffer shame from them anymore. You will not cause your nation to fall anymore, says the Lord God.’ ”
16. The Lord spoke his word to me again, saying:
17. “Human, when the nation of Israel was living in their own land, they made it unclean by their ways and the things they did. Their ways were like a woman’s uncleanness in her time of monthly bleeding.
18. So I poured out my anger against them, because they murdered in the land and because they made the land unclean with their idols.
19. I scattered them among the nations, and they were spread through the countries. I punished them for how they lived and what they did.
20. They dishonored my holy name in the nations where they went. The nations said about them ‘These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave the land which he gave them.’
21. But I had concern for my holy name, which the nation of Israel had dishonored among the nations where they went.