Sing with praise, barren city that art childless still; echo thy praise, cry aloud, wife that wast never brought to bed; forsaken, she is to have more children now, the Lord says, than wife whose husband remains with her.✻

Make more room for thy tent, stretch wide—what hinders thee?—the curtains of thy dwelling-place; long be the ropes, and firm the pegs that fasten them.

Right and left thou shalt spread, till thy race dispossesses the heathen, peoples the ruined cities.

Not thine to fear disappointment, not thine to blush for hopes unfulfilled; forget, henceforward, the shame of younger days, the reproach of thy widowed state; think upon it no more.

Husband now thou hast, and the name of him is the Lord of hosts, thy creator; he, the Holy One of Israel, that will now be called God of the whole earth, makes thee his own.

The Lord calls thee back, a woman forsaken and forlorn, the wife of his youth, long cast away; thy God sends thee word,

If I abandoned thee, it was but for a little moment, and now, in my great compassion, I bring thee home again.

Hid I my face from thee, it was for a short while, till my anger should be spent; love that takes pity on thee shall be eternal, says the Lord, thy ransomer.

The days of Noe have come again; I swore to Noe that I would bring no more floods on the earth such as his; thou, too, hast my oath for it, I will be angry with thee no more, rebuke thee no more.

Let the mountains be moved, the hills shake; my compassion towards thee stands immovable, my promise still unshaken, says the Lord, thy comforter.

Thou, the friendless, the storm-beaten, the inconsolable, shalt have a pavement of patterned stones, and thy foundations shall be of sapphire;

thou shalt have turrets of jasper, and gates of carved gems, and all thy boundary stones shall be jewels.

All thy children, then, shall be disciples of the Lord; thy children, blessed how abundantly with peace!

Justice shall be thy sure foundation; far from thy thoughts be all oppression, now thou hast nothing to fear, all tumult of the mind,✻ when peril is none to threaten thee.

Aliens that had no part with me shall come to thy side; strangers shall throw in their lot with thine.✻

See where the smith blows the coals at his forge, fashioning each weapon according to its use! Who but I made him? And who but I made the slayer that goes out to destroy?

No weapon that is forged against thee shall go true; no voice that is raised to condemn thee, but thou shalt give it the lie. Such their lot shall be that are the Lord’s servants; such protection shall they have of me, says the Lord.