For they covered the face of the whole earth so that the land was darkened, and they ate every plant in the land and all the fruit from the trees that the hail had left. No green thing remained, not a tree or a plant of the field throughout all the land of Egypt.
He said, “If now I have found grace in Your eyes, my Lord, let my Lord please go within our midst, even though this is a stiff-necked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own inheritance.”
Perhaps Adonai your God, will hear the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words which Adonai your God has heard. So offer prayer for the remnant that is left.”
and said to the prophet Jeremiah, “Please, let our petition be presented before you, and pray to Adonai your God on our behalf, for all this remnant—for we who are left are but a few out of many, as you are seeing with your own eyes—
As I prophesied, Pelatiah son of Benaiah dropped dead. I fell upon my face and cried out with a loud voice and said, “Ah, Adonai! Are you going to completely eradicate the remnant of Israel?”
While they were out killing, and I was left alone, I fell on my face and cried out saying, “Alas, Adonai Elohim! Are you going to destroy all the remnant of Israel by pouring out Your wrath upon Jerusalem?”
Between the porch and the altar let the kohanim, ministers of Adonai, weep, and let them say: “Have pity, Adonai, on Your people. Don’t make Your heritage a scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should the peoples say, ‘Where is their God?’”
“I struck you with blight and mildew. Your many gardens and vineyards, your fig-trees and olive trees the locust has devoured— yet you have not returned to Me,” declares Adonai.
For who despises the day of small things? These seven—which are the eyes of Adonai that run back and forth throughout the whole earth—will rejoice when they see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”
They were told to do no harm to the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only the people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.