With your shepherd’s staff, take care of your people, the sheep that belong to you. They live alone in the woods, in fertile pastures. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead like before.
How will anyone ever know you’re pleased with your people and me unless you go with us? Then we will be different from all other people on the face of the earth.”
Look at you! You are beautiful, my true love. Look at you! You are so beautiful. Your eyes behind your veil are like doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down Mount Gilead.
On that day a ram’s horn will be blown loudly. Those who are dying in Assyria and those who are banished to Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Like a lily the land will blossom. It will rejoice and sing with joy. It will have the glory of Lebanon, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. Everyone will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.
Through your servants you defy the Lord and say, “With my many chariots I’ll ride up the high mountains, up the slopes of Lebanon. I’ll cut down its tallest cedars and its finest cypresses. I’ll come to its most distant heights and its most fertile forests.
They will never be hungry or thirsty, nor will the sun or the burning, hot wind strike them. The one who has compassion on them will lead them and guide them to springs.
“Now, during its suffering and oppression, Jerusalem remembers all the treasures it had from ancient times, when its people fell into the power of their enemies with no one to help them. Their opponents looked on, and they laughed at Jerusalem’s downfall.
I will increase the number of people and animals that live on you. They will grow and become many. I will let people live on you as in the past, and I will make you better off than ever before. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
On that day I will set up David’s fallen tent. I will repair the holes in it. I will restore its ruined places. I will rebuild them as they were a long time ago.
“People from the Negev will take possession of Esau’s mountain. People from the foothills will take possession of Philistia. They will take possession of the lands of Ephraim and Samaria, and ⌞the descendants of⌟ Benjamin will take possession of Gilead.
The child will become the shepherd of his flock. ⌞He will lead them⌟ with the strength of the Lord, with the majestic name of the Lord his God. They will live in safety because his greatness will reach the ends of the earth.
The faithful few in Israel will not do wrong, tell lies, or use their tongues to deceive others. They will graze their sheep and lie down, and there will be no one to terrify them.”
I will bring them back from Egypt. I will gather them from Assyria. I will bring them to Gilead and to Lebanon, and there won’t be enough room for them.”
So I became the shepherd of the sheep that were to be slaughtered and also of the oppressed sheep. I took two shepherd staffs and named one Favor and the other Unity. And I took care of the sheep.
I see them from the top of rocky cliffs, I look at them from the hills. I see a nation that lives by itself, people who do not consider themselves to be like other nations.