“So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall, and it will become trampled ground.
“A lion has gone up from his thicket, And a destroyer of nations has set out; He has gone out from his place To make your land a desolation. Your cities will be turned into ruins Without inhabitant.
Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down; A wolf of the deserts will devastate them; A leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces Because their transgressions are many; Their acts of faithlessness are mighty.
¶“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me and brought me into confusion; He has set me down like an empty vessel; He has swallowed me like a sea monster; He has filled his stomach with my delicacies; He has rinsed me away.
Then the city was breached, and all the men of war fled and went forth from the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls which was by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah.
‘But it was uprooted in wrath; It was cast down to the ground; And the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong thick branch was torn off So that it dried up; The fire consumed it.
¶The shields of his mighty men are colored red, The valiant men are dressed in scarlet, The chariots are enveloped in flashing steel When he is set up to march, And the cypress spears are brandished.