20. “Is not Israel still my son,my darling child?” says the lord.“I often have to punish him,but I still love him.That’s why I long for himand surely will have mercy on him.
21. Set up road signs;put up guideposts.Mark well the pathby which you came.Come back again, my virgin Israel;return to your towns here.
22. How long will you wander,my wayward daughter?For the lord will cause something new to happen—Israel will embrace her God.”
23. This is what the lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: “When I bring them back from captivity, the people of Judah and its towns will again say, ‘The lord bless you, O righteous home, O holy mountain!’
24. Townspeople and farmers and shepherds alike will live together in peace and happiness.
25. For I have given rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing.”
26. At this, I woke up and looked around. My sleep had been very sweet.
27. “The day is coming,” says the lord, “when I will greatly increase the human population and the number of animals here in Israel and Judah.
28. In the past I deliberately uprooted and tore down this nation. I overthrew it, destroyed it, and brought disaster upon it. But in the future I will just as deliberately plant it and build it up. I, the lord, have spoken!
29. “The people will no longer quote this proverb:‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,but their children’s mouths pucker at the taste.’
30. All people will die for their own sins—those who eat the sour grapes will be the ones whose mouths will pucker.
31. “The day is coming,” says the lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.
32. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the lord.
33. “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.