Now then, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will tear away its hedge so that it can be devoured and tear down its wall so that it can be trampled.
Then they said, “Let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves so that we won’t become scattered all over the face of the earth.”
“May the king live forever!” I said to the king. “Why shouldn’t I look sad when the city, the place where my ancestors are buried, is in ruins and its gates are burned down?”
I send them against a godless nation. In my fury I order them against the people to take their belongings, loot them, and trample on them like mud in the streets.
Your treaty with death will be wiped away. Your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming disaster passes by, you will be trampled by it.
In a little less than a year you overconfident women will tremble, because the grape harvest will fail and no fruit will be brought in ⌞from the fields⌟.
“Now say to the people of Judah and to those who live in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: I’m going to prepare a disaster and make plans against you. Turn from your evil ways, change your lives, and do good.’
‘This is what the Lord God of Israel says: I’m going to take your weapons away from you. You are using these weapons to fight the king of Babylon as well as the Babylonians who are now blockading you outside the wall. I will bring the Babylonians inside this city.
The Lord has treated all the warriors inside my ⌞walls⌟ with contempt. He called an army to defeat my young men. The Lord trampled the people of Judah in a winepress.
He stripped his own booth as if it were a garden and destroyed his own festivals. The Lord wiped out the memory of festivals and days of rest—holy days—in Zion. He expelled kings and priests because of his fierce anger.
Then I heard a holy one speaking. Another holy one said to the one who was speaking, “How long will the things in this vision—the daily burnt offering, the destructive rebellion, the surrender of the holy place, and the trampling of the army—take place?”
I will destroy her grapevines and fig trees. She said that they were gifts from her lovers. I will turn her vineyards into a forest, and wild animals will devour them.
Swords will cut them down, and they will be carried off into all nations as prisoners. Nations will trample Jerusalem until the times allowed for the nations ⌞to do this⌟ are over.