He spoke before his brothers and the army of Shomron, and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing they are burned?
who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Yerushalayim, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Yehudah, They shall be built, and I will raise up the waste places of it;
For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set everyone his throne at the entrance of the gates of Yerushalayim, and against all the walls of it round about, and against all the cities of Yehudah.
The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Yehudah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.
It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words, and they shall tell you, Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?
[to wit], Yerushalayim, and the cities of Yehudah, and the kings of it, and the princes of it, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day;
Mikhah the Morashti prophesied in the days of Chizkiyahu king of Yehudah; and he spoke to all the people of Yehudah, saying, Thus says the LORD of Armies: Tziyon shall be plowed as a field, and Yerushalayim shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant? All the people were gathered to Yirmeyahu in the house of the LORD.
Behold, I will command, says the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Yehudah a desolation, without inhabitant.
Thus says the LORD of Armies, the God of Yisra'el: You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Yerushalayim, and on all the cities of Yehudah; and behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwells therein,
For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and animal.
The ways of Tziyon do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her Kohanim do sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Ya`akov, and has not pitied: He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Yehudah; He has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and the princes of it.
Therefore I will make Shomron like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations.
Therefore Tziyon for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Yerushalayim will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
For the statutes of `Omri 1 are kept, and all the works of the house of Ach'av. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and her inhabitants a hissing; And you will bear the reproach of my people.*
[and that] the whole land of it is sulfur, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sedom and `Amorah, Admah and Tzevoyim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
He cried with a mighty voice, saying, *Fallen, fallen is Bavel the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird!