Isaiah 49:19-21

Contemporary English Version

Jerusalem's Bright Future

¹⁹Jerusalem is now in ruins!
    Nothing is left of the city.
But it will be rebuilt
    and soon overcrowded;
its cruel enemies
    will be gone far away.

²⁰Jerusalem is a woman
    whose children were born
while she was in deep sorrow^[a]
    over the loss of her husband.
Now those children
will come and seek room
    in the crowded city,
²¹and Jerusalem will ask,
    “Am I really their mother?
How could I have given birth
when I was still mourning
    in a foreign land?
Who raised these children?
Where have they come from?”

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Footnotes

49.20 whose children … sorrow: These “children” are Jews who were born in foreign countries during the time that Jerusalem was in ruins. Jerusalem probably stands for all the cities in Judah that were destroyed by the Babylonians.