"I will let some escape the slaughter and be scattered among the nations,

LORD God of Israel, you are just, but you have let us survive. We confess our guilt to you; we have no right to come into your presence."

If the LORD Almighty had not let some of the people survive, Jerusalem would have been totally destroyed, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.

Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit.

None of the people of Judah who are left and have come to Egypt to live will escape or survive. Not one of them will return to Judah, where they long to live once again. No one will return except a few refugees."

But a few of you will escape death and return from Egypt to Judah. Then the survivors will know whose words have come true, mine or theirs.

where they will live in exile. There they will remember me and know that I have punished them and disgraced them, because their faithless hearts deserted me and they preferred idols to me. And they will be disgusted with themselves because of the evil and degrading things they have done.

My voice was thin and weak, And I moaned like a dove. My eyes grew tired from looking to heaven. LORD, rescue me from all this trouble.

We are frightened and distressed. We long for God to save us from oppression and wrong, but nothing happens.

You will remember your evil conduct and the wrongs that you committed, and you will be disgusted with yourselves because of your sins and your iniquities.

You will lie groaning on your deathbed, your flesh and muscles being eaten away,

I wouldn't listen to my teachers. I paid no attention to them.

My people will return weeping, praying as I lead them back. I will guide them to streams of water, on a smooth road where they will not stumble. I am like a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my oldest son."

"I hear the people of Israel say in grief, ' LORD, we were like an untamed animal, but you taught us to obey. Bring us back; we are ready to return to you, the LORD our God.

We turned away from you, but soon we wanted to return. After you had punished us, we hung our heads in grief. We were ashamed and disgraced because we sinned when we were young.'

The LORD says, "When that time comes, the people of both Israel and Judah will come weeping, looking for me, their God.

They will ask the way to Zion and then go in that direction. They will make an eternal covenant with me and never break it.

"I will fill the descendants of David and the other people of Jerusalem with the spirit of mercy and the spirit of prayer. They will look at the one whom they stabbed to death, and they will mourn for him like those who mourn for an only child. They will mourn bitterly, like those who have lost their first-born son.

Each family in the land will mourn by itself: the family descended from David, the family descended from Nathan, the family descended from Levi, the family descended from Shimei, and all the other families. Each family will mourn by itself, and the men of each family will mourn separately from the women.

(SEE 12:12)