I answered, “Your Majesty, I hope you live for ever! I feel sad because the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and its gates have been burnt down.”
to beat down you godless people. I am angry with you, and I will send him to attack you. He will take what he wants and walk on you like mud in the streets.
So listen to me, people of Judah and Jerusalem! I have decided to strike you with disaster, and I won't change my mind unless you stop sinning and start living right.
You, LORD, have turned back my warriors and crushed my young heroes. Judah was a woman untouched, but you let her be trampled like grapes in a wine-pit.
He shattered his temple like a hut in a garden; he completely wiped out his meeting place, and did away with festivals and Sabbaths in the city of Zion. In his fierce anger he rejected our king and priests.
Then one of the holy angels asked another, “When will the daily sacrifices be offered again? What about this horrible rebellion? When will the temple and heaven's army no longer be trampled in the dust?”
She said, “My lovers gave me vineyards and fig trees as payment for sex.” Now I, the LORD, will ruin her vineyards and fig trees; they will become clumps of weeds eaten by wild animals.
Some of them will be killed by swords. Others will be carried off to foreign countries. Jerusalem will be overrun by foreign nations until their time comes to an end.
But don't measure the courtyard outside the temple building. Leave it out. It has been given to those people who don't know God, and they will trample all over the holy city for forty-two months.