It will not be inhabited, even unto the end, and it will not be reestablished, even from generation to generation. The Arab will not pitch his tents there, nor will the shepherds take rest there.
And thorns and nettles will rise up in its houses, and the thistle in its fortified places. And it will be the lair of serpents and the pasture of ostriches.
Evil will overwhelm you, and you will not notice its rising. And calamity will fall violently over you, and you will not be able to avert it. You will suddenly be overwhelmed by a misery such as you have never known.
And they have not said: 'Where is the Lord, who caused us to ascend from the land of Egypt; who led us through the desert, through an uninhabited and impassable land, through a land of drought and of the image of death, through a land in which no one walked and in which no man lived?'
Your mother has been exceedingly shamed, and she who bore you has become equal to the dust. Behold, she will be the last among the nations, a desert, impassable and dry.
And the earth will be shaken and will be disturbed. For the plan of the Lord against Babylon will awaken, so that he may make the land of Babylon desolate and uninhabitable.
you will say: 'O Lord, you have spoken against this place so that you may destroy it, so that there would not be anyone, from man even to beast, who may live in it, and so that it may be desolate forever.'