So the Lord said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them.
“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.
If they fast, I will not listen to their supplication. If they sacrifice burnt offerings or grain offerings, I will take no pleasure in them. Rather, I will destroy them with the sword, famine, and plague.
Of deadly disease they shall die. Unlamented and unburied they will lie like dung on the ground. Sword and famine will make an end of them, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.
For thus says the Lord: Indeed, I will hand you over to terror, you and all your friends. Your own eyes shall see them fall by the sword of their enemies. All Judah I will hand over to the power of the king of Babylon, who shall take them captive to Babylon or strike them down with the sword.
See, the siegeworks have arrived at this city to capture it; the city is handed over to the Chaldeans who are attacking it, with sword, starvation, and disease. What you threatened has happened—you can see it for yourself.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: In this place, now a waste, without people or animals, and in all its cities there shall again be sheepfolds for the shepherds to rest their flocks.
Therefore, thus says the Lord: You for your part did not obey me by proclaiming freedom for your families and neighbors. So I now proclaim freedom for you—oracle of the Lord—for the sword, starvation, and disease. I will make you an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
And against Jehoiakim, king of Judah, say this: Thus says the Lord: You are the one who burned that scroll, saying, “Why did you write on it: Babylon’s king shall surely come and ravage this land, emptying it of every living thing”?
Therefore, thus says the Lord God: my anger and my wrath will pour out upon this place, upon human being and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruits of the earth; it will burn and not be quenched.
But I will let a few of them escape the sword, starvation, and plague, so that they may recount all their abominations among the nations to which they go. Thus they may know that I am the Lord.
Son of man, if a land sins against me by breaking faith, and I stretch out my hand against it, breaking its staff of bread and setting famine loose upon it, cutting off from it human being and beast alike—
Thus says the Lord God: Even though I send against Jerusalem my four evil punishments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—to cut off from it human being and beast alike,
Say this to them: Thus says the Lord God: As I live, those among the ruins shall fall by the sword; those in the open field I have made food for the wild beasts; and those in rocky hideouts and caves shall die by the plague.
Thus they shall know that I am the Lord, when I make the land a desolate waste because of all the abominations they committed. Popular Misunderstanding.
The sword is outside; disease and hunger are within. Whoever is in the fields will die by the sword; whoever is in the city disease and hunger will devour.
Therefore the land dries up, and everything that dwells in it languishes: The beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and even the fish of the sea perish.
I will sweep away human being and beast alike, I will sweep away the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble; I will eliminate the people from the face of the land—oracle of the Lord.
They will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken as captives to all the Gentiles; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The Coming of the Son of Man.