Zephaniah 3:19

“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?

He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead those who have their young.

I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”

You will come up against my people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land. It will happen in the latter days, that I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when I am sanctified in you, Gog, before their eyes.”

Yahweh, your God, is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.

Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

Then I beat them as small as the dust of the earth. I crushed them as the mire of the streets, and spread them abroad.

The sons of those who afflicted you will come bowing to you; and all those who despised you will bow themselves down at the soles of your feet. They will call you Yahweh’s City, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

They will call them “The Holy People, Yahweh’s Redeemed”. You will be called “Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken”.

This city will be to me for a name of joy, for praise, and for glory, before all the nations of the earth, which will hear all the good that I do to them, and will fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I provide to it.’ ”

You will ascend. You will come like a storm. You will be like a cloud to cover the land, you, and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.”

I will enter into judgment with him with pestilence and with blood. I will rain on him, and on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, an overflowing shower, with great hailstones, fire, and sulfur.

“I will send a fire on Magog, and on those who dwell securely in the islands. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.

“In that day,” says Yahweh, “I will assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted;

The nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They will lay their hand on their mouth. Their ears will be deaf.

For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments which I command you today, that Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.

The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in Yahweh’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city. God appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks.

“Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”

I will bring the blind by a way that they don’t know. I will lead them in paths that they don’t know. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. I will do these things, and I will not forsake them.

Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am Yahweh; and those who wait for me shall not be disappointed.”

I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh; and they will be drunk on their own blood, as with sweet wine. Then all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Your Lord Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more.

“Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, so that no one passed through you, I will make you an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.

Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured him, consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up and who led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will dwell in their own land.”

I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope! Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.

He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.”

Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted.

Behold, I give some of the synagogue of Satan, of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie—behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.

He performs great signs, even making fire come down out of the sky to the earth in the sight of people.

and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Judah and Israel lived safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Yahweh is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing.

There is a river, the streams of which make the city of God glad, the holy place of the tents of the Most High.

You answered them, Yahweh our God. You are a God who forgave them, although you took vengeance for their doings.

Yahweh builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.

Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.

I will tell the north, ‘Give them up!’ and tell the south, ‘Don’t hold them back! Bring my sons from far away, and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me.

Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for Yahweh, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”

I will give them in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

The Lord Yahweh, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, “I will yet gather others to him, in addition to his own who are gathered.”

Then you shall see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you. The wealth of the nations will come to you.

For as the earth produces its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring up, so the Lord Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

and give him no rest, until he establishes, and until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed;

“I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape of them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to far-away islands, who have not heard my fame, nor have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

For Yahweh says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

For as the belt clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me,’ says Yahweh; ‘that they may be to me for a people, for a name, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’

“I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply.

For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”

You haven’t strengthened the diseased. You haven’t healed that which was sick. You haven’t bound up that which was broken. You haven’t brought back that which was driven away. You haven’t sought that which was lost, but you have ruled over them with force and with rigor.

“I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them in justice.” ’

Say to them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, where they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land.

You saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.

and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they will sell them to the men of Sheba, to a faraway nation, for Yahweh has spoken it.”

But they will sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and no one will make them afraid: For the mouth of Yahweh of Armies has spoken.

Let your hand be lifted up above your adversaries, and let all of your enemies be cut off.

Aren’t you from everlasting, Yahweh my God, my Holy One? We will not die. Yahweh, you have appointed him for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish.

The coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah. They will find pasture. In the houses of Ashkelon, they will lie down in the evening, for Yahweh, their God, will visit them, and restore them.

Yahweh, within her, is righteous. He will do no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He doesn’t fail, but the unjust know no shame.

At that time I will bring you in, and at that time I will gather you; for I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says Yahweh.

They shall be as mighty men, treading down muddy streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them; and the riders on horses will be confounded.

“In that day there will be a spring opened to David’s house and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.

“All nations shall call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says Yahweh of Armies.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”

but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries.

and make straight paths for your feet, so what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,

Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back,

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Violence shall no more be heard in your land, nor desolation or destruction within your borders; but you will call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.

Instead of your shame you will have double. Instead of dishonor, they will rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they will possess double. Everlasting joy will be to them.

Therefore all those who devour you will be devoured. All your adversaries, everyone of them, will go into captivity. Those who plunder you will be plunder. I will make all who prey on you become prey.

Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company.

Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is Yahweh your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

Yahweh has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The King of Israel, Yahweh, is among you. You will not be afraid of evil any more.

They went up over the width of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God and devoured them.

He will make you high above all nations that he has made, in praise, in name, and in honor; and that you may be a holy people to Yahweh your God, as he has spoken.

For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces; for the man Mordecai grew greater and greater.

Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see; but they will see your zeal for the people, and be disappointed. Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.

“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’

Don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant,” says Yahweh; “for I am with you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have driven you; but I will not make a full end of you, but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”

They will bear their shame, and all their trespasses by which they have trespassed against me, when they dwell securely in their land, and no one will make them afraid,

It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

Then Yahweh will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.