Why are we just sitting here? Gather together; let’s enter the fortified cities and perish there, for the Lord our God has destroyed us. He has given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.
Therefore, this is what the Lord of Armies says concerning the prophets: I am about to feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.
The name of the star is Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood. So, many of the people died from the waters, because they had been made bitter.
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: ‘Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand and make all the nations to whom I am sending you drink from it.
Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.
‘The Lord will bring you and your king that you have appointed to a nation neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone.
I am watching over them for disaster and not for good, and everyone from Judah who is in the land of Egypt will meet his end by sword or famine until they are finished off.
I will devastate Elam before their enemies, before those who intend to take their lives. I will bring disaster on them, my burning anger. This is the Lord’s declaration. I will send the sword after them until I finish them off.
You are to burn a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended; you are to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind, for I will draw a sword to chase after them.
A third of your people will die by plague and be consumed by famine within you; a third will fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter a third to every direction of the wind, and I will draw a sword to chase after them.