All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, ‘We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for! We have lived to see it.’
Indeed, they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. There is no standing corn; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it did, foreigners would swallow it up.
‘King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty dish; he has swallowed me like a sea monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies; he has vomited me out.
The Lord has sworn with his right hand and his strong arm: I will no longer give your grain to your enemies for food, and foreigners will not drink the new wine for which you have laboured.
Then the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited me against him, to destroy him for no good reason.’
That messenger was still speaking when yet another came and reported, ‘The Chaldeans formed three bands, made a raid on the camels, and took them away. They struck down the servants with the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you! ’
So he brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria. They captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.
The angel of the Lord came, and he sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites.
They will eat the offspring of your livestock and your land’s produce until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, fresh oil, young of your herds, or newborn of your flocks until they cause you to perish.
The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He swallowed up all its palaces and destroyed its fortified cities. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation within Daughter Judah.