I will increase the number of people and animals on you; they will increase and be fruitful. I will cause you to be inhabited as in ancient times, and will do more good for you than at the beginning of your history. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

You have killed many people in this city; you have filled its streets with corpses.’

By your great skill in trade you have increased your wealth, and your heart is proud because of your wealth.

You engaged in prostitution with the Egyptians, your sexually aroused neighbors, multiplying your promiscuity and provoking me to anger.

Then you multiplied your promiscuity to the land of merchants, Babylonia, but you were not satisfied there either.

and say: “‘What a lioness was your mother among the lions! She lay among young lions; she reared her cubs.

Yet she increased her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth when she engaged in prostitution in the land of Egypt.

Pile up the bones, kindle the fire; cook the meat well, mix in the spices, let the bones be charred.

I will multiply your people – the whole house of Israel, all of it. The cities will be populated and the ruins rebuilt.

I made you plentiful like sprouts in a field; you grew tall and came of age so that you could wear jewelry. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, but you were still naked and bare.

At the head of every street you erected your pavilion and you disgraced your beauty when you spread your legs to every passerby and multiplied your promiscuity.

Samaria has not committed half the sins you have; you have done more abominable deeds than they did. You have made your sisters appear righteous with all the abominable things you have done.

So hearts melt with fear and many stumble. At all their gates I have stationed the sword for slaughter. Ah! It is made to flash, it is drawn for slaughter!

Her princes within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows within it.

Therefore it grew taller than all the trees of the field; its boughs grew large and its branches grew long, because of the plentiful water in its shoots.

I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it; I will not bring a famine on you.

I will multiply the fruit of the trees and the produce of the fields, so that you will never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: I will multiply their people like sheep.

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a perpetual covenant with them. I will establish them, increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.