For as the earth produces its growth, and as a garden enables what is sown to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
The Lord will always lead you, satisfy you in a parched land, and strengthen your bones. You will be like a watered garden and like a spring whose water never runs dry.
But you are a chosen race, ,, a royal priesthood, , a holy nation, , a people for his possession, , so that you may proclaim the praises ,, of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem, until her righteousness shines like a bright light, and her salvation like a flaming torch.
‘Heavens, sprinkle from above, and let the skies shower righteousness. Let the earth open up so that salvation will sprout and righteousness will spring up with it. I, the Lord, have created it.
Awaken, north wind; come, south wind. Blow on my garden, and spread the fragrance of its spices. Let my love come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.
But the one sown on the good ground #– #this is one who hears and understands the word, who does produce fruit and yields: some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.’
Violence will never again be heard of in your land; devastation and destruction will be gone from your borders. You will call your walls Salvation and your city gates Praise.
It will be said about me, “Righteousness and strength are found only in the Lord.” ’ All who are enraged against him will come to him and be put to shame.
All your people will be righteous; they will possess the land for ever; they are the branch I planted, the work of my hands, so that I may be glorified.
Then God said, ‘Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.’ And it was so.