special guest blogger the prophet baruch

Jerusalem take off your dress of sorrow and distress.
Put on the beauty of God's glory for evermore.
Wrap the cloak of God's saving justice around you.
Put the diadem of the eternal one's glory on your head.
For God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven,
And the name God gives you for evermore will be 'Peace Through Justice And Glory Through Devotion.'
Arise Jerusalem, stand on the heights and turn your eyes to the east.
See your children reassembled from west and east at the holy one's command, rejoicing because God has remembered.
Though they left you on foot driven by enemies, now God brings them back to you, carried gloriously like a royal throne.
For God has decreed the flattening of each high mountain, of the everlasting hills, the filling of the valleys to make the ground level so that Israel can walk safely in God's glory.
And the forests and every fragrant tree will provide shade for Israel at God's command.
For God will guide Israel in joy by the light of his glory with the mercy and saving justice which come from him.