This house will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this house?’
Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, an object of hissing and of cursing, as they are today;
For by myself I have sworn, says the Lord, that Bozrah shall become an object of horror and ridicule, a waste, and an object of cursing, and all her towns shall be perpetual wastes.
Because of the wrath of the Lord, she shall not be inhabited but shall be an utter desolation; everyone who passes by Babylon shall be appalled and hiss because of all her wounds.
For you have kept the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have followed their counsels. Therefore I will make you a desolation and your inhabitants an object of hissing, so you shall bear the scorn of my people.
Is this the exultant city that lived secure, that said to itself, “I am, and there is no one else”? What a desolation it has become, a lair for wild animals! Everyone who passes by it hisses and shakes the fist.
The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which the Lord has afflicted it—