This will happen because they have abandoned me and offered sacrifices ¹  to other gods, angering me with all the idols they have made. ²  My anger will ignite against this place and will not be extinguished!’”

for suddenly their destruction will overtake them, ¹  and who knows the ruinous judgment both the Lord and the king can bring? ² 

At that time ¹  every place where there had been a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels will be overrun ²  with thorns and briers.

They will pass through the land ¹  destitute and starving. Their hunger will make them angry, ²  and they will curse their king and their God ³  as they look upward.

This is what will happen throughout ¹  the earth, among the nations. It will be like when they beat an olive tree, and just a few olives are left at the end of the harvest. ² 

Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The Lord’s word which you have announced is appropriate.” ¹  Then he thought, ²  “For ³  there will be peace and stability during my lifetime.”

Who acts and carries out decrees? ¹  Who ²  summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end – I am the one. ³ 

Predict how future events will turn out, ¹  so we might know you are gods. Yes, do something good or bad, so we might be frightened and in awe. ² 

“Look, I am about to do something new. Now it begins to happen! ¹  Do you not recognize ²  it? Yes, I will make a road in the desert and paths ³  in the wilderness.

I announced them to you beforehand; before they happened, I predicted them for you, so you could never say, ‘My image did these things, my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

Approach me! Listen to this! From the very first I have not spoken in secret; when it happens, ¹  I am there.” So now, the sovereign Lord has sent me, accompanied by his spirit. ² 

The Lord answered, ¹  “This will happen ²  because my people are foolish. They do not know me. They are like children who have no sense. ³  They have no understanding. They are skilled at doing evil. They do not know how to do good.”

¹ So I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. For from the least important to the most important of them, all of them are greedy for dishonest gain. Prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.

For I, the Lord, tell you what will happen to ¹  the children who are born here in this land and to the men and women who are their mothers and fathers. ² 

They will be like a shrub ¹  in the desert. They will not experience good things even when they happen. It will be as though they were growing in the desert, in a salt land where no one can live.

You, Pashhur, and all your household ¹  will go into exile in Babylon. You will die there and you will be buried there. The same thing will happen to all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’” ² 

But just suppose you continue to say, ‘The message of the Lord is burdensome.’ Here is what the Lord says will happen: ‘I sent word to you that you must not say, “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” But you used the words “The Lord’s message is burdensome” anyway.

The Lord affirms, ¹  “The descendants of Israel will not cease forever to be a nation in my sight. That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights were to cease to operate before me.” ² 

The Lord says, “I will not reject all the descendants of Israel because of all that they have done. ¹  That could only happen if the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below could all be explored,” ²  says the Lord. ³ 

This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ¹  from their earliest history until now ²  and because they ³  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ⁴  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁵