Isaiah 49:8-17

Restoration of Israel 8This is what the LORD says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances,

9to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’ “They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill.

10They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

11I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up.

12See, they will come from afar— some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Aswan. Dead Sea Scrolls; Masoretic Text Sinim ”

13Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

14But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

15“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

16See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.

17Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you.