For the fortified city shall be desolate, an abandoned pasture, a forsaken wilderness; There calves shall graze, there they shall lie down, and consume its branches.
Yes, I will make it a ruin: it shall not be pruned or hoed, but will be overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to rain upon it.
In place of the thornbush, the cypress shall grow, instead of nettles, the myrtle. This shall be to the Lord’s renown, as an everlasting sign that shall not fail.
“How long, O Lord?” I asked. And he replied: Until the cities are desolate, without inhabitants, Houses, without people, and the land is a desolate waste.
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are being torn down because of the siegeworks and the sword:
The high places of Aven will be destroyed, the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will cry out to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall upon us!”
When they flee from the devastation, Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will overgrow their silver treasures, and thorns, their tents.