For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob. For they are filled with soothsayers from the east, and they have clapped hands with the children of foreigners.
So by this will Jacob’s sin be atoned and this the full price to remove his sin: When he makes all the altar stones like shattered chalk stones, so that the Asherah poles and incense rise no more.
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.
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.
You will say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who live securely, all of them living without walls, having no bars or gates,
A tumult will arise among your people. All your strongholds will be demolished, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when a mother was dashed in pieces with her children.
Then he responded to me by saying, ‘This is the word of Adonai to Zerubbabel saying: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Ruach!” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.