For the fortified city shall be desolate, a homestead forlorn and forsaken like a wilderness; there the calf shall graze, and there it shall lie down and eat its branches.
And I will lay it waste: It shall not be pruned or dug, but briers and thorns shall come up. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste without inhabitants, and the houses without man, and the land is utterly desolate,
For thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the houses of this city, and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah, which were torn down to make a defense against the siege mounds and against the sword:
The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. Thorn and thistle will grow on their altars. They will say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.
lest I strip her naked and leave her as in the day that she was born, and turn her into a wilderness, and turn her into a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
For behold, they are gone because of destruction. Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver, and thorns will be in their tents.