When the angel had said this, all the people of Israel began to cry,

Only admit that you are guilty and that you have rebelled against the LORD, your God. Confess that under every green tree you have given your love to foreign gods and that you have not obeyed my commands. I, the LORD, have spoken.

Return, all of you who have turned away from the LORD; he will heal you and make you faithful. You say, "Yes, we are coming to the LORD because he is our God.

But the worship of Baal, the god of shame, has made us lose flocks and herds, sons and daughters---everything that our ancestors have worked for since ancient times.

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 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.

At that time the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

"Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them!

For the sadness that is used by God brings a change of heart that leads to salvation---and there is no regret in that! But sadness that is merely human causes death.

See what God did with this sadness of yours: how earnest it has made you, how eager to prove your innocence! Such indignation, such alarm, such feelings, such devotion, such readiness to punish wrongdoing! You have shown yourselves to be without fault in the whole matter.