Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
Therefore you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with customs from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they make bargains with the children of aliens.
By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin; when he makes all the stones of the altar like chalkstones that are beaten to dust, the idol poles and incense altars shall not remain standing.
Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities are wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land is utterly desolate,
The Lord has swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and has not pitied: he has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought them down to the ground: he has polluted the kingdom and its princes.
And you shall say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
Therefore shall a tumult arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.
Then he answered and spoke unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts.