3 Again I will build you, so you will be rebuilt, virgin Israel! Again you will take up your tambourines as ornaments, and go out to dances of merrymakers.
4 Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria— planters will plant and use them.
5 For there will be a day when watchmen will call out in the hill country of Ephraim, ‘Arise, let us go up to Zion, to Adonai our God.’”
6 For thus says Adonai: “Sing aloud with joy for Jacob! Shout with the chief of the nations! Proclaim, give praise, and say: ‘Adonai, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’
7 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and I will gather them from the ends of the earth— among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant together with she who is in labor with child. A great throng will return here.
8 With weeping and supplications they will come. I will bring them, leading them to walk by streams of water on a straight path where they will not stumble. For I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is My firstborn.”
9 Hear the word of Adonai, O nations, and declare it in the distant islands, and say: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather and watch over him, as a shepherd does his flock.’