“Among the smooth stones of the stream is your portion; they, they, are your lot! Also to them you have poured a drink offering, you have offered a grain offering. Am I comforted in these?
“For this city has been a cause for My displeasure and My wrath from the day that they built it, even to this day that I should remove it from before My face,
“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.
Therefore I am filled with the wrath of יהוה. I have become weary of containing it. “Pour it out on the children outside, and on the company of young men together, for even husband and wife shall be taken, the aged and the very old.
For thus said יהוה of hosts, “Cut down her trees, and cast up a siege mound against Yerushalayim. She is the city to be punished, in whose midst there is only oppression.
‘And My eye shall not pardon, nor would I spare. I give you according to your ways while your abominations are in your midst. And you shall know that I am יהוה who smites.
“As for My offerings: they slaughter flesh and they eat. יהוה shall not accept them. Now does He remember their crookedness and punish their sins. Let them return to Mitsrayim!
‘And I shall bring against you a sword executing the vengeance of My covenant, and you shall gather together in your cities, and I shall send pestilence among you, and you shall be given into the hand of the enemy.
‘Vengeance is Mine, and repayment, At the time their foot slips; For near is the day of their calamity, And the matters prepared are hastening to them.’
“O nations, acclaim His people! For He avenges the blood of His servants, And returns vengeance to His adversaries, And shall pardon His land, His people.”