I will send wild animals against you that will deprive you of your children, ravage your livestock, and reduce your numbers until your roads are deserted.
‘Suppose I allow dangerous animals to pass through the land and depopulate it so that it becomes desolate, with no one passing through it for fear of the animals.
They will be weak from hunger, ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will unleash on them wild beasts with fangs, as well as venomous snakes that slither in the dust.
I scattered them with a windstorm over all the nations that had not known them, and the land was left desolate behind them, with no one coming or going. They turned a pleasant land into a desolation.’
The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the appointed festivals. All her gates are deserted; her priests groan, her young women grieve, and she herself is bitter.
I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land.
I will make the land a desolate waste, and its proud strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, with no one passing through.
‘For this is what the Lord God says: How much worse will it be when I send my four devastating judgements against Jerusalem #– #sword, famine, dangerous animals, and plague #– #in order to wipe out both people and animals from it!
I will send famine and dangerous animals against you. They will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’
‘I will ordain four kinds of judgement for them’ #– #this is the Lord’s declaration #– #‘the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land to devour and destroy.
He turned around, looked at them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the children.
the prophet Jeremiah and said, ‘May our petition come before you; pray to the Lord your God on our behalf, on behalf of this entire remnant (for few of us remain out of the many, as you can see with your own eyes),