16. Thus says the Lord: "Let your voice cease from crying and your eyes from tears. For there is a reward for your work, says the Lord. And they will return from the land of the enemy.
17. And there is hope for your very end, says the Lord. And the sons will return to their own borders.
18. Listening, I heard Ephraim going into captivity: 'You have chastised me, and I was instructed, like a young untamed bull. Convert me, and I shall be converted. For you are the Lord my God.
19. For after you converted me, I did penance. And after you revealed to me, I struck my thigh. I am confounded and ashamed. For I have endured the disgrace of my youth.'
20. Certainly, Ephraim is an honorable son to me; surely, he is a tender child. For I will still remember him, as in the time when I first spoke about him. Because my heart is stirred up over him, surely I will take pity on him, says the Lord.
21. Establish a watchtower for yourself. Place yourself in bitterness. Direct your heart into the upright way, in which you used to walk. Return, return, O virgin of Israel, to these your cities!
22. How long will you be absorbed in delights, O wandering daughter? For the Lord has created something new upon the earth: a woman will encompass a man."
23. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Still they will speak this word in the land of Judah, and in its cities, when I will convert their captivity: 'May the Lord bless you, the beauty of justice, the holy mountain.'
24. And they will live in it: Judah together with all its cities, the farmer and those who drive the flocks.
25. For I have inebriated the weary soul, and I have satisfied every hungry soul.
26. Over this, I was awakened, as if from a deep sleep. And I saw, and my sleep became sweet to me.
27. Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the offspring of men and with the offspring of cattle.
28. And just as I have watched over them, so that I may root up, and tear down, and scatter, and destroy, and afflict, so will I watch over them, so that I may build and plant them, says the Lord.
29. In those days, they will no longer say: 'The fathers ate a bitter grape, and the teeth of the sons have been affected.'
30. Instead, each one will die for his own iniquity. Each man who will have eaten a bitter grape, his own teeth will be affected.
31. Behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will form a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,