¹³Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;

break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the Lord has comforted his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted.

¹⁴But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;

my Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you.

¹⁶Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are continually before me.

¹⁷Your builders make haste;4

your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.

¹⁸Lift up your eyes around and see;

they all gather, they come to you.

As I live, declares the Lord,

you shall put them all on as an ornament;

you shall bind them on as a bride does.

¹⁹“Surely your waste and your desolate places

and your devastated land—

surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants,

and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

²⁰The children of your bereavement

will yet say in your ears:

‘The place is too narrow for me;

make room for me to dwell in.’

²¹Then you will say in your heart:

‘Who has borne me these?

I was bereaved and barren,

exiled and put away,

but who has brought up these?

Behold, I was left alone;

from where have these come?’”

²²Thus says the Lord God:

“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,

and raise my signal to the peoples;

and they shall bring your sons in their arms,5

and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.

²³Kings shall be your foster fathers,

and their queens your nursing mothers.

With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,

and lick the dust of your feet.

Then you will know that I am the Lord;

those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

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