When I looked around me again, I saw a man with a measuring line in his hand.
"Where are you going?" I asked. He replied, "I am going to measure Jerusalem, to see how wide and how long it is."
Then the angel who was with me went to meet a second angel who was coming toward him.
The other angel said, "Hurry, and say to that young man, `Jerusalem will someday be so full of people that it won't have room enough for everyone! Many will live outside the city walls, with all their livestock--and yet they will be safe.
For I, myself, will be a wall of fire around Jerusalem, says the LORD. And I will be the glory inside the city!'"
The LORD says, "Come away! Flee from the north, for I have scattered you to the four winds.
Come away! Escape to Jerusalem, you who are exiled in Babylon!"
"After a period of glory, the LORD Almighty sent me against the nations who oppressed you. For he said, `Anyone who harms you harms my most precious possession.
I will raise my fist to crush them, and their own slaves will plunder them.' Then you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me."
The LORD says, "Shout and rejoice, O Jerusalem, for I am coming to live among you.
Many nations will join themselves to the LORD on that day, and they, too, will be my people. I will live among you, and you will know that the LORD Almighty sent me to you.
The land of Judah will be the LORD's inheritance in the holy land, and he will once again choose Jerusalem to be his own city.
Be silent before the LORD, all humanity, for he is springing into action from his holy dwelling."