So he poured out his burning anger and the horrors of war on them. It engulfed them in flames, but they did not understand. It burned them, but they did not take it to heart.
The report has arrived. A tremendous uproar is coming from the land of the north. Its army will destroy Judah’s cities and make them homes for jackals.
Pour out your fury on the nations who don’t know you and on people who don’t worship you. They have devoured the descendants of Jacob. They have devoured them completely. They have destroyed their homes.
I will devastate this city. It will become something to hiss at. Everyone who goes by it will be stunned and hiss with contempt at all the disasters that happen to it.
The land is filled with adulterers. The land mourns because of the curse. Pastures in the wilderness have dried up. The people are evil, and they use their strength to do the wrong things.
I will cry and weep for the mountains. I will sing a funeral song for the pastures in the wilderness. They are destroyed so that no one can travel through them. No one can hear the sound of cattle. Birds and cattle have fled. They are gone.
“Tell all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these past 70 years, did you really do it for me?
If you won’t listen and if you won’t consider giving honor to my name,” says the Lord of Armies, “then I’ll send a curse on you, and I’ll curse the blessings you give. Yes, I’ve already cursed them because you don’t carefully consider this.