“When they sin against You – for there is no one who does not sin – and You become enraged with them and give them to the enemy, and they take them captive to the land of the enemy, far or near;
“But if you turn away and forsake My laws and My commands which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other mighty ones, and bow yourself to them,
And they said to me, “The remnant who are left of the captivity in the province are there in great evil and reproach. And the wall of Yerushalayim is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”
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.
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,
“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.
“And death shall be preferred to life by all the rest of those who remain of this evil people, who remain in all the places where I have driven them,” declares יהוה of hosts.
“And I shall scatter them among the gentiles, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I shall send a sword after them until I have consumed them.”
How alone she sits, The city once great with people! Like a widow she has become, One great among the nations! A princess among provinces has become a slave!
They shouted at them, “Away! Unclean! Away! Away! Touch not!” When they fled and staggered, They said, among the gentiles, “They shall stay no longer.”
“Burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are completed. And you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and scatter one-third in the wind. And I shall draw out a sword after them.
For look, they shall go because of destruction – Mitsrayim gathers them up, Moph buries them, nettles possess their valuables of silver, thorns are in their tents.
“And if they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I shall command the sword, and it shall slay them. And I shall set My eyes on them for evil and not for good.”
“And I scattered them with a storm wind among all the gentiles which they had not known. And the land was laid waste behind them, no one passing through or returning, for they made the pleasant land a waste.”
“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Yerushalayim shall be trampled underfoot by the gentiles until the times of the gentiles are filled.