97:7.7

“Mother, embrace your children. I will bring them out with gladness like a dove does. Establish their feet, for I have chosen you, says the Lord. I will raise those who are dead up again from their places, and bring them out from their tombs, for I recognize my name in them. Don’t be afraid, you mother of children, for I have chosen you, says the Lord. For your help, I will send my servants Esaias and Jeremy, after whose counsel I have sanctified and prepared for you twelve trees laden with various fruits, and as many springs flowing with milk and honey, and seven mighty mountains, on which roses and lilies grow, with which I will fill your children with joy. Do right to the widow. Secure justice for the fatherless. Give to the poor. Defend the orphan. Clothe the naked. Heal the broken and the weak. Don’t laugh a lame man to scorn. Defend the maimed. Let the blind man have a vision of my glory. Protect the old and young within your walls. Wherever you find the dead, set a sign upon them and commit them to the grave, and I will give you the first place in my resurrection. Stay still, my people, and take your rest, for your rest will come. Nourish your children, good nurse, and establish their feet. As for the servants whom I have given you, not one of them will perish, for I will require them from among your number. Don’t be anxious, for when the day of suffering and anguish comes, others will weep and be sorrowful, but you will rejoice and have abundance. The nations will envy you, but they will be able to do nothing against you, says the Lord. My hands will cover you, so that your children don’t see Gehenna. Be joyful, mother, with your children, for I will deliver you, says the Lord. Remember your children who sleep, for I will bring them out of the secret places of the earth and show mercy to them, for I am merciful, says the Lord Almighty. Embrace your children until I come, and proclaim mercy to them, for my wells run over, and my grace won’t fail.”

Be of good cheer, my people, the memorial of Israel. You were not sold to the nations for destruction, but because you moved God to wrath, you were delivered to your adversaries. For you provoked him who made you by sacrificing to demons and not to God. You forgot the everlasting God who brought you up. You also grieved Jerusalem, who nursed you. For she saw the wrath that came upon you from God, and said, “Listen, you who dwell near Zion; for God has brought upon me great mourning. For I have seen the captivity of my sons and daughters, which the Everlasting has brought upon them. For with joy I nourished them, but sent them away with weeping and mourning. Let no man rejoice over me, a widow and forsaken by many. For the sins of my children, I am left desolate, because they turned away from the law of God and had no regard for his statutes. They didn’t walk in the ways of God’s commandments or tread in the paths of discipline in his righteousness. Let those who dwell near Zion come and remember the captivity of my sons and daughters, which the Everlasting has brought upon them. For he has brought a nation upon them from afar, a shameless nation with a strange language, who didn’t respect old men or pity children. They have carried away the dear beloved sons of the widow, and left her who was alone desolate of her daughters.”

Yet, O Lord our God, you have dealt with us after all your kindness and according to all your great mercy, as you spoke by your servant Moses in the day when you commanded him to write your law in the presence of the children of Israel, saying, “If you won’t hear my voice, surely this very great multitude will be turned into a small number among the nations where I will scatter them. For I know that they will not hear me, because they are a stiff-necked people; but in the land of their captivity they will take it to heart, and will know that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart and ears to hear. Then they will praise me in the land of their captivity, and think about my name, and will return from their stiff neck and from their wicked deeds; for they will remember the way of their fathers who sinned before the Lord. I will bring them again into the land which I promised to their fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and they will rule over it. I will increase them, and they won’t be diminished. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God, and they will be my people. I will no more remove my people Israel out of the land that I have given them.”