I have said to you: Release my son, so that he may serve me. And you were not willing to release him. Behold, I will put to death your firstborn son.' "
Since then, you have become honorable in my eyes, and glorious. I have loved you, and I will present men on behalf of you, and people on behalf of your life.
"Go, and cry out to the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says the Lord: I have remembered you, taking pity on your youth and on the charity of your betrothal, when you followed me into the desert, into a land which is not sown.
And after all your abominations and fornications, you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and full of shame, wallowing in your own blood.
But, passing by you, I saw that you were wallowing in your own blood. And I said to you, when you were in your blood: 'Live.' I tell you that I said to you, in your blood: 'Live.'
And I will give to her, from the same place, her vinedressers, and the valley of Achor as a passage of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the days of her ascension from the land of Egypt.
I have loved you, says the Lord, and you have said, "In what way have you loved us?" Was not Esau brother to Jacob, says the Lord? And have I not loved Jacob,
And he remained there, until the death of Herod, in order to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: "Out of Egypt, I called my son."
It is not because you surpass all the nations in number that the Lord has joined with you and has chosen you, for you are the least numerous of any people.