I will fate you to the sword, and all of you will kneel to slaughter. For I called, but you did not answer, I spoke, but you did not hear. So you did what was evil in My sight, and chose what I did not delight in.”
Therefore thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: “I am about to punish them! The young men will die by the sword; their sons and their daughters will die by famine.
If I go out into the field, see, those slain by the sword! And if I enter into the city, see, the sick with famine! For both prophet and kohen will travel to a land they do not know.
Their widows will increase before Me more than the sand of the seas, I will bring a destroyer at noonday against the mother of a young man. Suddenly I will bring down on her anguish and terrors.
Therefore give their children to famine and pour out the power of the sword. Let their wives be bereaved of children, and widows, and let their men be slain to death, and their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
So I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will have them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of them that seek their life. I will give their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.
He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, or by the pestilence. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you, he will live, and he will have his life as prize.”
On the ground in the streets lie both young and old. My maidens and my young men have fallen by the sword. You slew them in the day of Your anger. You slaughtered them without pity.