After they brought them out of the city, one of the men said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Run to the mountains, or you will be destroyed.”
With your power you forced the nations out of the land and placed our ancestors here. You destroyed those other nations, but you made our ancestors grow strong.
My people, leave Babylon! Run from the Babylonians! Tell this news with shouts of joy to the people; spread it everywhere on earth. Say, “The Lord has saved his servants, the people of Jacob.”
The Lord says, “All you who are thirsty, come and drink. Those of you who do not have money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
I will make the people of Judah hated by everyone on earth because of what Manasseh did in Jerusalem. (Manasseh son of Hezekiah was king of the nation of Judah.)
“Nations, listen to the message from the Lord. Tell this message in the faraway lands by the sea: ‘The one who scattered the people of Israel will bring them back, and he will watch over his people like a shepherd.’
Look, I will soon bring Israel from the country in the north, and I will gather them from the faraway places on earth. Some of the people are blind and crippled. Some of the women are pregnant, and some are ready to give birth. A great many people will come back.
“Run away from Babylon and save your lives! Don’t stay and be killed because of Babylon’s sins. It is time for the Lord to punish Babylon; he will give Babylon the punishment she deserves.
“So say, ‘This is what the Lord God says: I sent the people far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries. But for a little while I have become a Temple to them in the countries where they have gone.’
All the best of his soldiers who escape will die by the sword, and those who live will be scattered to every wind. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken.
So parents among you will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and will scatter to the winds all who are left alive.
A third of you will die by disease or be destroyed by hunger inside your walls. A third will fall dead by the sword outside your walls. And a third I will scatter in every direction as I chase them with a sword.
After that king has come, his kingdom will be broken up and divided out toward the four parts of the world. His kingdom will not go to his descendants, and it will not have the power that he had, because his kingdom will be pulled up and given to other people.
“I am giving the command to scatter the nation of Israel among all nations. It will be like someone shaking grain through a strainer, but not even a tiny stone falls through.
“So this is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy. My Temple will be rebuilt,’ says the Lord All-Powerful, ‘and the measuring line will be used to rebuild Jerusalem.’
Then the Lord will scatter you among the nations—from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone, gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known.
Then I heard another voice from heaven saying: “Come out of that city, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive the disasters that will come to her.
Boaz went to the city gate and sat there until the close relative he had mentioned passed by. Boaz called to him, “Come here, friend, and sit down.” So the man came over and sat down.