“I stirred Cyrus up in righteousness and I will level all his roads. He will build My city and set My exiles free, with no price or bribe,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
“Is not this the fast I choose: to release the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to tear off every yoke?
Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: “The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together. All their captors hold them fast. They refused to let them go.
Her graves are set in the deepest parts of the Pit. Her company surrounds her grave —all of them slain, fallen by the sword —who put terror in the land of the living.
I will stretch out My hand over them and make the land desolate and waste, more than the wilderness of Diblah, wherever they live. Then they will know that I am Adonai.”
A fire devours before them and behind them flame blazes up. Like the Garden of Eden is the land before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Nothing at all ever escapes them.