I have stirred him up in righteousness, And all his ways I make straight, He doth build My city, and My captivity doth send out, Not for price, nor for bribe, said Jehovah of Hosts.
Is not this the fast that I chose -- To loose the bands of wickedness, To shake off the burdens of the yoke, And to send out the oppressed free, And every yoke ye draw off?
Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Oppressed are the sons of Israel, And the sons of Judah together, And all their captors have kept hold on them, They have refused to send them away.
Whose graves are appointed in the sides of the pit, And her assembly is round about her grave, All of them wounded, falling by sword, Because they gave terror in the land of the living.
And I have stretched out my hand against them, And have made the land a desolation, Even a desolation from the wilderness to Diblath, In all their dwellings, And they have known that I `am' Jehovah!'
Before it consumed hath fire, And after it burn doth a flame, As the garden of Eden `is' the land before it, And after it a wilderness -- a desolation! And also an escape there hath not been to it,