I was angry with My people. I profaned My heritage. I gave them into your hand, but you showed them no mercy. You made your yoke very heavy on the aged.
Then David said to Gad, “I am in a great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of Adonai, for His mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man.”
But a prophet of Adonai named Oded was there and he went out to meet the army on its return to Samaria. He said to them, “Behold, because Adonai, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, He has given them into your hand and you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven.
Therefore He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the House of their Temple. He had no pity on young man or virgin, elderly or infirm—He gave them all into his hand.
But because our fathers angered the God of heaven, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean. He destroyed this House and carried the people away to Babylon.
I am sending it against an ungodly nation, and against the people of My fury I am commissioning it, to take spoil and plunder, to trample them down like mud in the streets.
They grasp bow and javelin. They are cruel, with no compassion. Their voice roars like the sea, as they ride on horses, arranged as warriors for battle, against you, daughter of Babylon.
My transgressions are bound into a yoke, woven together by His hand. They have come upon my neck and He has sapped my strength. The Lord delivered me over to those I cannot withstand.
They have heard me groaning. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies heard of my distress, They rejoice that You have done it. May You bring about the day that You proclaimed, so they may become like me!
My Lord has mercilessly swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. He threw down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah in His fury. He knocked to the ground and humiliated the kingdom and its princes.
speak to the house of Israel, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Behold, I will profane My Sanctuary, the pride of your might, the desire of your eyes and the longing of your soul. Your sons and your daughters that you have left behind will fall by the sword.
By the abundance of your trade they filled you within with violence. So you have sinned. So I threw you out as a profane thing from the mountain of God. I made you vanish, guardian cheruv, from among the stones of fire.
For just as you have drunk on My holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually. Yes, they will drink and gulp down, and then be as though they had never existed.
Then the angel of Adonai answered and said, ‘Adonai-Tzva’ot, how long will You withhold compassion on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah with whom You have been angry for 70 years?’