Therefore the Yehuḏim of the villages who dwelt in the unwalled towns were making the fourteenth day of the new moon of Aḏar a good day of gladness and feasting, and for sending portions to one another.
See Tsiyon, the city of our appointed time; your eyes shall see Yerushalayim, an undisturbed home, a tent not taken down. Its stakes are never removed, nor any of its cords broken.
confirming the word of His servant, and completing the counsel of His messengers, who says of Yerushalayim, ‘Be inhabited,’ and of the cities of Yehuḏah, ‘They shall be built, and her ruins raised up by Me,’
“See, I Myself have created the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire, who brings forth an instrument for his work. And I have created the waster to destroy.
“See, the days are coming,” declares יהוה, “that I shall sow the house of Yisra’ĕl and the house of Yehuḏah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.
As the host of the heavens is not counted, nor the sand of the sea measured, so I increase the descendants of Dawiḏ My servant and the Lĕwites who attend upon Me.’ ”
“And you shall say, ‘Let me go up against a land of unwalled villages, let me go to those at rest who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,’
young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, having insight in all wisdom, having knowledge and understanding learning, capable to stand in the sovereign’s palace, and to teach them the writing and speech of the Kasdim.
Therefore thus said יהוה, “I shall return to Yerushalayim with compassion. My house shall be built in it,” declares יהוה of hosts, “and a surveyor’s line be stretched out over Yerushalayim.” ’
“Again proclaim, saying, ‘Thus said יהוה of hosts, “Again My cities shall overflow with goodness. And יהוה shall again comfort Tsiyon, and shall again choose Yerushalayim.” ’ ”
“In that day I make the leaders of Yehuḏah like a fire pot among trees, and like a torch of fire in the sheaves. And they shall consume all the peoples all around, on the right and on the left. And Yerushalayim shall dwell again in her own place, in Yerushalayim.
And this is the plague with which יהוה plagues all the people who fought against Yerushalayim: their flesh shall decay while they stand on their feet, and their eyes decay in their sockets, and their tongues decay in their mouths.