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.”
A highway will be there, a roadway. It will be called the Holy Road. Sinners won’t travel on it. It will be for those who walk on it. Godless fools won’t wander ⌞onto it⌟.
You will be established in righteousness. You will be far from oppression, so you will not be afraid. You will be far from destruction, so it won’t come near you.
Even if one out of ten people is left in it, the land will be burned again. When a sacred oak or an oak is cut down, a stump is left The holy seed will be the land’s stump.”
Then all your people will be righteous, and they will possess the land permanently. They will be the seedling I have planted, the honored work of my hands.
I will put shepherds over them. Those shepherds will take care of them. My sheep will no longer be afraid or terrified, and not one of them will be missing,” declares the Lord.
“Don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob,” declares the Lord. “Don’t be terrified, Israel. I’m going to rescue you from a faraway place. I’m going to rescue your descendants from where they are captives. The descendants of Jacob will again have peace and security, and no one will frighten them.
“But this is the promise that I will make to Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put my teachings inside them, and I will write those teachings on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
I will change those who are lame into a faithful people. I will change those who are forced away into a strong nation.” The Lord will rule them on Mount Zion now and forever.
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.
The coast will belong to the faithful few from the nation of Judah. There they will graze their sheep. In the evening they will lie down in the houses of Ashkelon. The Lord their God will take care of them and will restore their fortunes.
The righteous Lord is in that city. He does no wrong. He brings his judgment to light every morning. He does not fail. But those who are perverted are shameless.
Seeds will thrive in peacetime. Vines will produce their grapes. The land will yield its crops. The sky will produce its dew. I will give the few remaining people all these things as an inheritance.
This is what the Lord says: I will return to Zion and live in Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth. The mountain of the Lord of Armies will be called the holy mountain.
Nothing unclean, no one who does anything detestable, and no liars will ever enter it. Only those whose names are written in the lamb’s Book of Life will enter it.
But cowardly, unfaithful, and detestable people, murderers, sexual sinners, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars will find themselves in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”