But you have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. You are in constant dread all day long because of the fury of the oppressor, who has set himself to destroy. But where is the fury of the oppressor?
‘ “The house of Israel will no longer be hurt by prickly briars or painful thorns from all their neighbours who treat them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.
For your waste and desolate places and your land marked by ruins will now be indeed too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him to go against a people destined for my rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
So I said to them, ‘You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned. Come, let’s rebuild Jerusalem’s wall, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.’
So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites #– #everyone whose spirit God had roused #– #prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem.