You will be called "God's Holy People," "The People the LORD Has Saved." Jerusalem will be called "The City That God Loves," "The City That God Did Not Forsake."

Even the palace will be abandoned and the capital city totally deserted. Homes and the forts that guarded them will be in ruins forever. Wild donkeys will roam there, and sheep will find pasture there.

But once more God will send us his spirit. The wasteland will become fertile, and fields will produce rich crops.

But the people of Jerusalem said, "The LORD has abandoned us! He has forgotten us."

Jerusalem, you have been like a childless woman, but now you can sing and shout for joy. Now you will have more children than a woman whose husband never left her.

Israel, you are like a young wife, deserted by her husband and deeply distressed. But the LORD calls you back to him and says:

"For one brief moment I left you; with deep love I will take you back.

The LORD said to Hosea, "Name him 'Not-My-People,' because the people of Israel are not my people, and I am not their God."

The people of Israel will become like the sand of the sea, more than can be counted or measured. Now God says to them, "You are not my people," but the day is coming when he will say to them, "You are the children of the living God!"

This is what he says in the book of Hosea: "The people who were not mine I will call 'My People.' The nation that I did not love I will call 'My Beloved.'

And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: "Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, "I will never leave you; I will never abandon you."

At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.

Like a young man taking a virgin as his bride, He who formed you will marry you. As a groom is delighted with his bride, So your God will delight in you.

The LORD takes pleasure in his people; he honors the humble with victory.

I will take pleasure in doing good things for them, and I will establish them permanently in this land.

The LORD your God is with you; his power gives you victory. The LORD will take delight in you, and in his love he will give you new life. He will sing and be joyful over you,

Your Creator will be like a husband to you--- the LORD Almighty is his name. The holy God of Israel will save you--- he is the ruler of all the world.

Jerusalem rejoices because of what the LORD has done. She is like a bride dressed for her wedding. God has clothed her with salvation and victory.

"Unfaithful people, come back; you belong to me. I will take one of you from each town and two from each clan, and I will bring you back to Mount Zion.

Israel, I will make you my wife; I will be true and faithful; I will show you constant love and mercy and make you mine forever.

I will keep my promise and make you mine, and you will acknowledge me as LORD.

The bridegroom is the one to whom the bride belongs; but the bridegroom's friend, who stands by and listens, is glad when he hears the bridegroom's voice. This is how my own happiness is made complete.

I am jealous for you, just as God is; you are like a pure virgin whom I have promised in marriage to one man only, Christ himself.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it.

in order to present the church to himself in all its beauty---pure and faultless, without spot or wrinkle or any other imperfection.

And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me and said, "Come, and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb."

The Spirit took control of me, and the angel carried me to the top of a very high mountain. He showed me Jerusalem, the Holy City, coming down out of heaven from God