and saith before his brethren and the force of Samaria, yea, he saith, `What `are' the weak Jews doing? are they left to themselves? do they sacrifice? do they complete in a day? do they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish? -- and they burnt!'
And Aiim have responded in his forsaken habitations, And dragons in palaces of delight, And near to come `is' her time, And her days are not drawn out!
And gone up her palaces have thorns, Nettle and bramble `are' in her fortresses, And it hath been a habitation of dragons, A court for daughters of an ostrich.
Confirming the word of His servant, The counsel of His messengers it perfecteth, Who is saying of Jerusalem, She is inhabited, And of cities of Judah, They shall be built, and her wastes I raise up,
For, lo, I am calling for all families of the kingdoms of the north, -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- and they have come, and put each his throne at the opening of the gates of Jerusalem, and by its walls round about, and by all cities of Judah.
And it hath come to pass when thou declarest to this people all these words, and they have said unto thee, `For what hath Jehovah spoken against us all this great evil? yea, what `is' our iniquity, and what our sin, that we have sinned against Jehovah our God?'
`Micah the Morashtite hath been prophesying in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and he saith unto all the people of Judah, saying: Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Zion is a plowed field, and Jerusalem is heaps, And the mountain of the house is for high places of a forest.
Wherefore hast thou prophesied in the name of Jehovah, saying, `As Shiloh this house shall be, and this city is wasted, without inhabitant?' and all the people are assembled unto Jeremiah in the house of Jehovah.
Lo, I am commanding -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- and have brought them back unto this city, and they have fought against it, and captured it, and burned it with fire, and the cities of Judah I do make a desolation -- without inhabitant.'
`Thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: Ye -- ye have seen all the evil that I have brought in on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah, and lo, they `are' a waste this day, and there is none dwelling in them,
For come up against her hath a nation from the north, It maketh her land become a desolation, And there is not an inhabitant in it. From man even unto beast, They have moved, they have gone.
The ways of Zion are mourning, Without any coming at the appointed time, All her gates are desolate, her priests sigh, Her virgins are afflicted -- and she hath bitterness.
Swallowed up hath the Lord, He hath not pitied any of the pleasant places of Jacob, He hath broken down in His wrath The fortresses of the daughter of Judah, He hath caused to come to the earth, He polluted the kingdom and its princes.
And kept habitually are the statutes of Omri, And all the work of the house of Ahab, And ye do walk in their counsels, For My giving thee for a desolation, And its inhabitants for a hissing, And the reproach of My people ye do bear!
(`with' brimstone and salt is the whole land burnt, it is not sown, nor doth it shoot up, nor doth there go up on it any herb, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overturned in His anger, and in His fury,) --
and he did cry in might -- a great voice, saying, `Fall, fall did Babylon the great, and she became a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird,