while the Philistines had raided the towns in the foothills and in the South of Judah. They captured and occupied Beth-shemesh, Aijalon and Gederot, as well as Soho, Timnah and Gimzo with their villages.
Therefore, Adonai brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze shackles, and led him to Babylon.
For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land will now be surely too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
Then I said, “Adonai, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate.
But you should no longer remember ‘the burden of Adonai’—for to each one, his own word is becoming ‘the burden’! So you have perverted the words of the living God, of Adonai-Tzva’ot our God.
“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become ruins, and the mountain of the House as the high places of a forest.’
because of their wickedness which they committed to provoke Me, by continuing to burn sacrifices for and serve other gods, whom they had not known—not they, nor you, nor your fathers.
Her uncleanness was in her skirts. She did not consider her future. Her demise was astonishing, there was no one to comfort her. “Adonai, see my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”
Then He said to me: “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his chamber of his carved idol? For they say, ‘Adonai does not see us. Adonai has forsaken the land.’”
He said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great; the land is full of blood and the city is full of corruption. For they say, ‘Adonai has forsaken the land, Adonai does not see!’
They will turn back—only not upwards. They are like a treacherous bow. Their princes will fall by the sword because of the insolence with their tongues. This will be for their ridicule in the land of Egypt.
Therefore, because of you Zion will become a plowed field. Yes, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the Temple Mount will become a high place in a forest.
With eyes too pure to see evil You cannot look at such trouble! Why do You look at the treacherous? Why do You remain silent when a wicked one swallows up those more righteous than him?
to execute judgment against all. He will convict all the ungodly for all their ungodly deeds that they have done in an ungodly way, and for all of the harsh things ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”