in the first year of his reign—I, Daniel, understood from the books that according to the word of Adonai to Jeremiah the prophet, the number of the years for the fulfilling of the desolation of Jerusalem would be 70 years.
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?’
“Speak to all the people of the land and to the kohanim saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh months for the past seventy years, did you really fast for Me?
Then it will come to pass, when 70 years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” declares Adonai, “the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, and I will make it ruins forever.
“They will be brought to Babylon, and there will they be until the day that I take note of them”—it is a declaration of Adonai—“and bring them up and restore them to this place.”
For thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel: “I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, so that they may serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. They will serve him, and I have also given him the beasts of the field.”
Then say to them, thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Israel: “I am about to send for and bring King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I will set his throne over these stones where I have hid, and he will spread his royal pavilion over them.
Then Adonai could no longer endure it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations that you committed! So your land has become a wasteland, a desolation and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.
All the nations will serve him—and his son, and his grandson—until the time of his own land comes, and then many nations and great kings will make him their slave.’
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.”
Say to the people of the land, this is what Adonai says concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the land of Israel: They will eat their bread with anxiety and drink their water with horror, because her land will be stripped of all that is in it, because of the violence of all who live there.