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.
“Therefore thus said יהוה concerning the sovereign of Ashshur, ‘He does not come into this city, nor does he shoot an arrow there, nor does he come before it with shield, nor does he build a siege mound against it.
‘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!
“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 shall lay siege against it, and build a siege wall against it, and heap up a mound against it, and set camps against it, and place battering rams against it all around.
“Then the sovereign of the North shall come in and build a siege mound, and capture a city of strongholds. And the arms of the South shall not stand, nor his choice people, for there is no strength to stand.