Look around you and see what is happening: Your people are gathering to come home! Your sons will come from far away; Your daughters will be carried like children.

The people of Israel will become like the sand of the sea, more than can be counted or measured. Now God says to them, "You are not my people," but the day is coming when he will say to them, "You are the children of the living God!"

And don't think you can escape punishment by saying that Abraham is your ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make descendants for Abraham!

But the heavenly Jerusalem is free, and she is our mother.

Now, you, my friends, are God's children as a result of his promise, just as Isaac was.

"I will show compassion to Jerusalem, to all who live in her ruins. Though her land is a desert, I will make it a garden, like the garden I planted in Eden. Joy and gladness will be there, and songs of praise and thanks to me.

Jerusalem, you have been like a childless woman, but now you can sing and shout for joy. Now you will have more children than a woman whose husband never left her.

Make the tent you live in larger; lengthen its ropes and strengthen the pegs!

The descendants of Joseph said to Joshua, "Why have you given us only one part of the land to possess as our own? There are very many of us because the LORD has blessed us."

They replied, "The hill country is not big enough for us, but the Canaanites in the plains have iron chariots, both those who live in Beth Shan and its surrounding towns and those who live in Jezreel Valley."

One day the group of prophets that Elisha was in charge of complained to him, "The place where we live is too small!