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.