And he spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria, and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rub
Then I said to them, Ye see the evil condition that we are in, how Jerusalem lays waste, and the gates of it are burned with fire. Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach.
And I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchers, lays waste, and the gates of it are consumed with fire?
And they said to me, The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. Also the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and the gates of it are burned with fire.
Then the heads of fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, even all whose spirit God had stirred, rose up to go up to build the house of LORD which is in Jerusalem.
O LORD, according to all thy righteousness, let thine anger and thy wrath, I pray thee, be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain. Because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy peopl
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab how that LORD had visited his people in giving them bread.
For LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. And the sojourner shall join himself with them, and they shall cling to the house of Jacob.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry to her, that her warfare has been completed, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of LORD's hand double for all her sins.
For LORD has comforted Zion. He has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of LORD. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
For thus says LORD, After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you in causing you to return to this place.
Thus says LORD: Behold, I will turn again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have compassion on his dwelling-places. And the city shall be built upon its own hill, and the palace shall be inhabited after its own manner.