This is a message about the Desert by the Sea: Disaster is coming from the desert like wind blowing in the south. It is coming from a terrible country.
The Lord will show mercy to the people of Jacob, and he will again choose the people of Israel. He will settle them in their own land. Then non-Israelite people will join the Israelites and will become a part of the family of Jacob.
The Lord says, “City of Babylon, go down and sit in the dirt. People of Babylon, sit on the ground. You are no longer the ruler. You will no longer be called tender or beautiful.
“We people of Judah are disgraced, because we have been insulted. We have been shamed, because strangers have gone into the holy places of the Lord’s Temple!”
When I looked, I saw a stormy wind coming from the north. There was a great cloud with a bright light around it and fire flashing out of it. Something that looked like glowing metal was in the center of the fire.
Nebuchadnezzar and his army, the cruelest army of any nation, will be brought in to destroy the land. They will pull out their swords against Egypt and will fill the land with those they kill.
The cruelest foreign nation cut it down and left it. The tree’s branches fell on the mountains and in all the valleys, and its broken limbs were in all the ravines of the land. All the nations of the earth left the shade of that tree.
“At the time of the end, the king of the South will fight a battle against the king of the North. The king of the North will attack with chariots, soldiers on horses, and many large ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through their lands like a flood.
Then the Lord will appear above them, and his arrows will shoot like lightning. The Lord God will blow the trumpet, and he will march in the storms of the south.