What answer, then, will my people give to the representatives of the nation? That the Lord is the builder of Zion, and she will be a safe place for the poor of his people.
Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.
But now, says the Lord your Maker, O Jacob, and your life-giver, O Israel: have no fear, for I have taken up your cause; naming you by your name, I have made you mine.
For this reason, truly, I will make them see, this once I will give them knowledge of my hand and my power; and they will be certain that my name is the Lord.
You have mercy on thousands, and send punishment for the evil-doing of the fathers on their children after them: the great, the strong God, the Lord of armies is his name:
Go for help to him who makes Orion and the Pleiades, by whom the deep dark is turned into morning, who makes the day black with night; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, sending them out over the face of the earth: the Lord is his name;
It is he who makes his rooms in the heaven, basing his arch on the earth; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, and sends them flowing over the face of the earth; the Lord is his name.
But now their desire is for a better country, that is to say, for one in heaven; and so it is no shame to God to be named their God; for he has made ready a town for them.