13Sing, heavens; and be joyful, earth;
and break out into singing, mountains:
for Yahweh has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his afflicted.
14But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me,
and the Lord has forgotten me.”
15“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Yes, these may forget,
yet I will not forget you!
16Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
your walls are continually before me.
17Your children hurry.
Your destroyers and those who devastated you will leave you.
18Lift up your eyes all around, and see:
all these gather themselves together, and come to you.
As I live,” says Yahweh, “you shall surely clothe yourself with them all as with an ornament,
and dress yourself with them, like a bride.
19“For, as for your waste and your desolate places,
and your land that has been destroyed,
surely now that land will be too small for the inhabitants,
and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
20The children of your bereavement will say in your ears,
‘This place is too small for me.
Give me a place to live in.’
21Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children,
and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth?
Who has brought these up?
Behold, I was left alone. Where were these?’”
22Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
and lift up my banner to the peoples;
and they shall bring your sons in their bosom,
and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
23Kings shall be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth,
and lick the dust of your feet;
Then you will know that I am Yahweh;
and those who wait for me shall not be disappointed.”