Look, I have made you like a new threshing board with many sharp teeth. So you will walk on mountains and crush them; you will make the hills like chaff.
The people roar like the waves, but when God speaks harshly to them, they will run away. They will be like chaff on the hills being blown by the wind, or like tumbleweeds blown away by a storm.
A farmer doesn’t use heavy boards to crush dill; he doesn’t use a wagon wheel to crush cumin. He uses a small stick to break open the dill, and with a stick he opens the cumin.
This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “The city of Babylon is like a threshing floor, where people crush the grain at harvest time. The time to harvest Babylon is coming soon.”
I, Jeremiah, will cry loudly for the mountains and sing a funeral song for the empty fields. They are empty, and no one passes through. The mooing of cattle cannot be heard. The birds have flown away, and the animals are gone.
I will make the land an empty desert. The people’s pride in the land’s power will end. The mountains of Israel will become empty so that no one will pass through them.
Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold broke to pieces at the same time. They became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summertime; the wind blew them away, and there was nothing left. Then the rock that hit the statue became a very large mountain that filled the whole earth.
“Get up and beat them, people of Jerusalem. I will make you strong as if you had horns of iron and hoofs of bronze. You will beat many nations into small pieces and give their wealth to the Lord, their treasure to the Lord of all the earth.”
Those of Jacob’s people who are left alive will be scattered among many nations and peoples. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion in a flock of sheep: As it goes, it jumps on them and tears them to pieces, and no one can save them.
“Who are you, big mountain? In front of Zerubbabel you will become flat land, and he will bring out the topmost stone, shouting, ‘It’s beautiful! It’s beautiful!’ ”
You also will have the mountain country. It is a forest, but you can cut down the trees and make it a good place to live. You will own all of it because you will force the Canaanites to leave the land even though they have powerful weapons and are strong.”