Jehoiachin king of Judah surrendered to the king of Babylon, along with Jehoiachin’s mother, servants, nobles, and officers. So Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin a prisoner in the eighth year he was king of Babylon.
Powerful people will be like small, dry pieces of wood, and their works will be like sparks. They will burn together, and no one will be able to put out that fire.”
They will be destroyed just as fire burns straw or dry grass. They will be destroyed like a plant whose roots rot and whose flower dies and blows away like dust. They have refused to obey the teachings of the Lord All-Powerful and have hated the message from the Holy God of Israel.
How much longer will the land stay dried up and the grass in every field be dead? The animals and birds in the land have died, because the people are evil. Yes, they are even saying, “God does not see what happens to us.”
So this is what the Lord God All-Powerful says: “The people said I would not punish them. So, the words I give you will be like fire, and these people will be like wood that it burns up.
I will send wild animals to attack you, and they will take your children away from you and destroy your cattle. They will make you so few in number the roads will be empty.
Listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. Honor my name,” says the Lord All-Powerful. “If you don’t, I will send a curse on you and on your blessings. I have already cursed them, because you don’t pay attention to what I say.
“There is a day coming that will burn like a hot furnace, and all the proud and evil people will be like straw. On that day they will be completely burned up so that not a root or branch will be left,” says the Lord All-Powerful.
The Lord will scatter you among the other nations. Only a few of you will be left alive, and those few will be in other nations where the Lord will send you.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The skies will disappear with a loud noise. Everything in them will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be exposed.