‘See the siege mounds! They have come to the city to take it. And the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword and the scarcity of food and the pestilence. And what You have spoken has come about, and look, You see it!
“The shepherds with their flocks shall come to her, they shall pitch their tents against her all around. They shall pasture, each one in his own place.”
“And you, son of man, prophesy, and strike your hands together. And let the sword come down twice, thrice, the sword for the slain. It is the sword of the slain, the great one, which surrounds them.
In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, on that same day the hand of יהוה came upon me and He brought me there.
“And they shall besiege you at all your gates till your high and fenced walls, in which you are trusting, come down in all your land. And they shall besiege you at all your gates in all your land which יהוה your Elohim has given you.
“Thus said יהוה of hosts, ‘The fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth months, are to be joy and gladness, and pleasant appointed times for the house of Yehuḏ