Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left.
King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon: himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.
Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten, and their blossom go up like dust, for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it, the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.”
Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts: Because you have spoken this word, I am now making my words in your mouth a fire and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them.
I will let loose wild animals against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock; they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted.
If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings; indeed, I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart.
See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be destroyed with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.