For, lo, they have gone away from destruction, [yet] Egypt shall gather them up. Memphis shall bury them. Their pleasant things of silver, nettles shall possess them. Thorns shall be in their tents.
The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.
And I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned nor hoed, but there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken like the wilderness. There the calf shall feed, and there he shall lay down, and consume the branches of it.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree. And it shall be to LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
For thus says LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which are broken down [to defend] against the mounds and against the sword,
lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.