Reading 4.
Final Invitation
Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty;
though you have no money, come!
Buy and eat; come buy wine and milk
without money, free!
Why spend money on what cannot nourish
and your wages on what fails to satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and you will have good things to eat
and rich food to enjoy.
Pay attention, come to me;
listen, and you will live.
I shall make an everlasting covenant with you
in fulfillment of the favors promised to David.
Look, I have made him a witness to peoples,
a leader and lawgiver to peoples.
Look, you will summon a nation unknown to you
for the sake of Yahweh your God,
because the Holy One of Israel has glorified you.
Seek out Yahweh while he is still to be found,
call to him while he is still near.
Let the wicked abandon his way
and the evil one his thoughts.
Let him turn back to Yahweh who will take pity on him,
to our God, for he is rich in forgiveness;
for my thoughts are not your thoughts
and your ways are not my ways,
declares Yahweh.
For the heavens are as high above earth
as my ways are above your ways,
my thoughts above your thoughts.
For, as the rain and the snow come down from the sky
and do not return before having watered the earth,
fertilizing it and making it germinate
to provide seed for the sower and food to eat,
so it is with the word that goes from my mouth:
it will nor return to me unfulfilled
or before having carried out my good pleasure
and having achieved what it was sent to do.
Conclusion
Yes, you will go out with joy
and be led away in safety.
Mountains and hills will break into joyful cries before you
and all the trees of the countryside clap their hands.
Cypress will grow instead of thorns,
myrtle instead of nettles.
And this will be fame for Yahweh,
an eternal monument never to be effaced.
For look, I am going to create new heavens and a new earth,
and the past will not be remembered
and will no more come to mind.
Rather be joyful, be glad for ever
at what I am creating,
for look, I am creating Jerusalem to be 'Joy'
and my people to be 'Gladness'.
I shall be joyful in Jerusalem
and I shall rejoice in my people.
No more will the sound of weeping be heard there,
nor the sound of a shriek;
never again will there be an infant there who lives
only a few days,
nor an old man who does not run his full course;
for the youngest will die at a hundred,
and at a hundred the sinner will be accursed.
They will build houses and live in them,
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They will not build for others to live in,
or plant for others to eat;
for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree,
and my chosen ones will themselves use what they have made.
They will not toil in vain,
nor bear children destined to disaster,
for they are the race of Yahweh's blessed ones
and so are their offspring.
Thus, before they call I shall answer,
before they stop speaking I shall have heard.
The wolf and the young lamb will feed together,
the lion will eat hay like the ox,
and dust be the serpent's food.
No hurt, no harm will be done
on all my holy mountain,
Yahweh says.
