“A lion has come up from his bush, and the destroyer of nations is on his way. He has set out from his place to make your land a ruin. Your cities are laid waste, without inhabitant.
Your land is laid waste, your cities are burned with fire, strangers devour your land in your presence. And it is laid waste, as overthrown by strangers.
“I have cut off nations, their corner towers are in ruins. I have made their streets deserted, with no one passing by. Their cities are destroyed, without man, without inhabitant.
Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of יהוה. And by the fire of His jealousy all the earth shall be consumed, for He makes a sudden end of all those who dwell in the earth.
Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, the lioness and the lion’s cub walked, with no one to disturb them?
“And יהוה could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your deeds and because of the abominations which you did. Therefore your land is a ruin, an object of astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant, as it is this day.
‘See, I am commanding,’ declares יהוה, ‘and shall bring them back to this city, and they shall fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. And I shall make the cities of Yehuḏ
“Why have you prophesied in the Name of יהוה, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city be dried up, without an inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered against Yirmeyahu in the House of יהוה.
“And you shall prophesy against them all these words, and say to them, ‘יהוה roars from on high, and utters His voice from His set-apart dwelling place. He roars mightily over His fold, a shout as those who tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.
Therefore a lion from the forest shall smite them, a wolf of the deserts ravage them. A leopard is watching over their cities, whoever comes out of them is torn in pieces. For their transgressions have been many, their backslidings have been numerous.
Then I said, “יהוה, until when?” And He answered, “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, and the houses are without a man, and the land is laid waste, a ruin,
therefore prophesy, and you shall say, ‘Thus said the Master יהוה, “Because they laid you waste and swallowed you up on every side, so that you became the possession of the rest of the gentiles, and you are taken up by the lips of talkers and slandered by the people,”
“I shall take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they have been burned up, without any passing over, nor has the voice of cattle been heard. Both the birds of the heavens and the beasts have fled, they have gone.