Who is left among you who saw this house in her former glory? And how do you see it now? When compared to it, is it not as nothing in your eyes?

Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly.

Fear not, you worm of Jacob and men of Israel; I will help you, says Jehovah and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I, Jehovah, will hasten it in its time.

You watched until it happened that a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were together broken to pieces, and they became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away so that they could not be found anywhere. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

For who has despised the day of small things? For they shall rejoice and shall see the plummet stone in the hand of Zerubbabel. These seven are the eyes of Jehovah which run to and fro through all the earth.

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: The kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field,

which indeed is the smallest of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

He who goes forth with weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the recesses of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together; a great company shall return there.

They shall come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way; they shall not stumble in it, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn.