Saturday, April 12, 2025

¹⁰“Hear the LORD’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’ ¹¹For the LORD has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he. ¹²They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of the LORD, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all. ¹³Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. ¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says the LORD. ¹⁵The LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” ¹⁶The LORD says: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded,” says the LORD. “They will come again from the land of the enemy. ¹⁷There is hope for your latter end,” says the LORD. “Your children will come again to their own territory. ¹⁸“I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned, for you are the LORD my God. ¹⁹Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’ ²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him,” says the LORD. ²¹“Set up road signs. Make guideposts. Set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went. Turn again, virgin of Israel. Turn again to these your cities. ²²How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing on the earth: a woman will encompass a man.” ²³The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘The LORD bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’ ²⁴Judah and all its cities will dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks. ²⁵For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” ²⁶On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me. ²⁷“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal. ²⁸It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” says the LORD. ²⁹“In those days they will say no more, “‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ ³⁰But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge. ³¹“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, ³²not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the LORD. ³³“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” ³⁵The LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar— the LORD of Armies is his name, says: ³⁶“If these ordinances depart from before me,” says the LORD, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.” ³⁷The LORD says: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” says the LORD. ³⁸“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that the city will be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner. ³⁹The measuring line will go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and will turn toward Goah. ⁴⁰The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, will be holy to the LORD. It will not be plucked up or thrown down any more forever.”

⁴⁵Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. ⁴⁷The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs. ⁴⁸If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” ⁴⁹But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, ⁵⁰nor do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” ⁵¹Now he didn’t say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵²and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. ⁵³So from that day forward they took counsel that they might put him to death. ⁵⁴Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed from there into the country near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples. ⁵⁵Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand. Many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves. ⁵⁶Then they sought for Jesus and spoke with one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think—that he isn’t coming to the feast at all?”