Like a frightened gazelle or a sheep with no shepherd, each will turn toward home, each will run to his homeland.

Every valley must be elevated, and every mountain and hill leveled. The rough terrain will become a level plain, the rugged landscape a wide valley.

For you will be like a tree whose leaves wither, like an orchard that is unwatered.

How tragic that the once-faithful city has become a prostitute! She was once a center of justice, fairness resided in her, but now only murderers.

The powerful will be like a thread of yarn, their deeds like a spark; both will burn together, and no one will put out the fire.

The light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One will become a flame; it will burn and consume the Assyrian king’s briers and his thorns in one day.

The Lord will give a mighty shout and intervene in power, with furious anger and flaming, destructive fire, with a driving rainstorm and hailstones.

“For a short time I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you.

Before she goes into labor, she gives birth! Before her contractions begin, she delivers a boy!

So this sin will become your downfall. You will be like a high wall that bulges and cracks and is ready to collapse; it crumbles suddenly, in a flash.

By day it will be a shelter to provide shade from the heat, as well as safety and protection from the heavy downpour.

He cuts down cedars and acquires a cypress or an oak. He gets trees from the forest; he plants a cedar and the rain makes it grow.

They pronounce the guilty innocent for a payoff, they ignore the just cause of the innocent.

I will make all my mountains into a road; I will construct my roadways.”

“Indeed, the Lord will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.

But be happy and rejoice forevermore over what I am about to create! For look, I am ready to create Jerusalem to be a source of joy, and her people to be a source of happiness.

They will sprout up like a tree in the grass, like poplars beside channels of water.

Look, I create the craftsman, who fans the coals into a fire and forges a weapon. I create the destroyer so he might devastate.

He wears his desire for justice like body armor, and his desire to deliver is like a helmet on his head. He puts on the garments of vengeance and wears zeal like a robe.

He will wind you up tightly into a ball and throw you into a wide, open land. There you will die, and there with you will be your impressive chariots, which bring disgrace to the house of your master.