Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
For you have forsaken your people, the house of Ya`akov, because they are filled from the east, with those who practice divination like the Pelishtim, and they clasp hands with the children of foreigners.
Therefore, by this the iniquity of Ya`akov will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherim and the incense altars shall rise no more.
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.
and you shall say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates;
Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beit-Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.
Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, *This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbavel, saying, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD of Armies.