But this is a people plundered and robbed, trapped in holes and hidden in houses of bondage. They are like prey that no one will rescue, like spoil with no one to say, “Bring them back!”
This is your last chance, my final warning. Your time is up! Turn away from all this evil, or the next time you hear from me will be when I am coming to pass judgment upon you. I will snatch you away, and no one will be there to help you escape my judgment.
Your country is devastated and your cities burned to the ground; foreigners plunder your crops before your eyes— with nothing but devastation and destruction in their wake!
sending their messengers by the way of the Nile in papyrus vessels gliding on the water! Go, you swift messengers, to a tall, smooth-skinned people feared far and wide, to a mighty conquering nation whose land the rivers divide.
The one who flees from the report of terror will fall into the pit. And whoever crawls out of the pit will be caught by the trap. Heaven’s floodgates opened and earth’s foundations trembled.
I am the one who raised him up in righteousness! I will make all his paths straight and level. He will build my city and release my exiled people, not because he was bribed or hired to do it, declares the Almighty Yahweh!”
Instead, I will put that bowl in the hands of your tormentors who said to you, ‘Lie down so we can walk all over you!’ For your back became like the ground they trample on, like a street for them to walk on.”
“Israel was like straying lambs, driven away and scattered by lions. “First, the king of Assyria devoured them, and now, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has gnawed their bones.
Thirty-seven years after King Jehoiachin was taken away as a prisoner, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of that year, King Evil-merodach of Babylon showed kindness to Jehoiachin by releasing him from prison. This was in Evil-merodach’s first year as king.