Isaiah 49:18-20

Contemporary English Version

¹⁸Look around! You will see
    your people coming home.
As surely as I live,
    I, the Lord, promise
that your city with its people
will be as lovely as a bride
    wearing her jewelry.”

Jerusalem's Bright Future

¹⁹Jerusalem is now in ruins!
    Nothing is left of the city.
But it will be rebuilt
    and soon overcrowded;
its cruel enemies
    will be gone far away.

²⁰Jerusalem is a woman
    whose children were born
while she was in deep sorrow^[a]
    over the loss of her husband.
Now those children
will come and seek room
    in the crowded city,

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Footnotes

49.20 whose children … sorrow: These “children” are Jews who were born in foreign countries during the time that Jerusalem was in ruins. Jerusalem probably stands for all the cities in Judah that were destroyed by the Babylonians.