Encouragement for Israel

⁵Take courage, my people,
   who perpetuate Israel’s name!
⁶It was not for destruction
   that you were sold to the nations,
but you were handed over to your enemies
   because you angered God.
⁷For you provoked the one who made you
   by sacrificing to demons and not to God.
⁸You forgot the everlasting God, who brought you up,
   and you grieved Jerusalem, who reared you.
⁹For she saw the wrath that came upon you from God,
   and she said:
Listen, you neighbours of Zion,
   God has brought great sorrow upon me;
¹⁰for I have seen the exile of my sons and daughters,
   which the Everlasting brought upon them.
¹¹With joy I nurtured them,
   but I sent them away with weeping and sorrow.
¹²Let no one rejoice over me, a widow
   and bereaved of many;
I was left desolate because of the sins of my children,
   because they turned away from the law of God.
²⁷Take courage, my children, and cry to God,
   for you will be remembered by the one who brought this upon you.
²⁸For just as you were disposed to go astray from God,
   return with tenfold zeal to seek him.
²⁹For the one who brought these calamities upon you
   will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation.