Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove the hedge, and it will be burned. I will break down the stone wall, and it will be walked on.
Then they said to each other, “Let’s build a city and a tower for ourselves, whose top will reach high into the sky. We will become famous. Then we will not be scattered over all the earth.”
I said to the king, “May the king live forever! My face is sad because the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”
I send it to fight against a nation that is separated from God. I am angry with those people, so I command Assyria to fight against them, to take their wealth from them, to trample them down like dirt in the streets.
“So, say this to the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem: ‘This is what the Lord says: I am preparing disaster for you and making plans against you. So stop doing evil. Change your ways and do what is right.’
‘Here is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: You have weapons of war in your hands to defend yourselves against the king of Babylon and the Babylonians, who are all around the city wall. But I will make those weapons useless. Soon I will bring them into the center of this city.
There were prophets long before we became prophets, Hananiah. They prophesied that war, hunger, and terrible diseases would come to many countries and great kingdoms.
The Lord said, “Say this to Baruch: ‘This is what the Lord says: I will soon tear down what I have built, and I will pull up what I have planted everywhere in Judah.
“The Lord has rejected all my mighty men inside my walls. He brought an army against me to destroy my young men. As if in a winepress, the Lord has crushed the capital city of Judah.
He cut down his Temple like a garden; he destroyed the meeting place. The Lord has made Jerusalem forget the set feasts and Sabbath days. He has rejected the king and the priest in his great anger.
Then I heard a holy angel speaking. Another holy angel asked the first one, “How long will the things in this vision last—the daily sacrifices, the turning away from God that brings destruction, the Temple being pulled down, and the army of heaven being walked on?”
But do not measure the yard outside the temple. Leave it alone, because it has been given to those who are not God’s people. And they will trample on the holy city for forty-two months.