Then they said, “Come! Let’s build ourselves a city, with a tower whose top reaches into heaven. So let’s make a name for ourselves, or else we will be scattered over the face of the whole land.”
But Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You’ve brought trouble on me, making me a stench among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. I am but a few men—they’ll gather against me and strike me—then I’ll be destroyed, my household and I.”
They said to me, “The remnant who have survived the captivity there in the province are in great distress and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire.”
Only gleanings will remain, as when beating an olive tree— two or three olives at the very top, four or five on a fruitful tree’s branches. It is a declaration of Adonai God of Israel.
So I will cast you out of this land into a land that you have not known—neither you nor your fathers—and there you will serve other gods day and night. For I will give you no grace.’
Therefore say, thus says Adonai Elohim, “Though I removed them far away, among the nations, though I scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I was a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.”
“Meshech-Tubal is there and all her throng, her graves around them —all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they spread their terror in the land of the living.
“‘You Lord are righteousness, but shame covers our face to this day—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, near and far, in all the countries where you have banished them—because they behaved unfaithfully toward you.
I will scatter you among the nations and I will draw out the sword after you. So your land will become a desolation and your cities will become a waste.
‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations they have not known. Thus the land was left so desolate behind them that no one passed through or returned, for they made the pleasant land desolate.’”
“Adonai will bring you and the king you set over you to a nation you and your fathers have not known—and there you will serve other gods, wood and stone.
“The secret things belong to Adonai our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever—in order to do all the words of this Torah.
then Adonai your God will bring you back from captivity and have compassion on you, and He will return and gather you from all the peoples where Adonai your God has scattered you.