“Son of man, because Tyre ¹  has said about Jerusalem, ²  ‘Aha, the gateway of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I will become rich, ³  now that she ⁴  has been destroyed,’

Listen to the howling of shepherds, because their magnificence has been destroyed. Listen to the roaring of young lions, because the thickets of the Jordan have been devastated.

Fire resides in his tent; ¹  over his residence burning sulfur is scattered.

Yet you have battered us, leaving us a heap of ruins overrun by wild dogs; ¹  you have covered us with darkness. ² 

The eyes of the Lord ¹  guard knowledge, ²  but he overthrows the words of the faithless person. ³ 

Look, I have inscribed your name ¹  on my palms; your walls are constantly before me.

“Judgment will come on the cities on the high plain: ¹  on Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath,

I will desolate Pathros, I will ignite a fire in Zoan, and I will execute judgments on Thebes.

For what does it benefit a person ¹  if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?

Certainly the Lord will console Zion; he will console all her ruins. He will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the Garden of the Lord. Happiness and joy will be restored to ¹  her, thanksgiving and the sound of music.

I will lay your cities waste ¹  and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas.

All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have ¹  on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

So Israel made a vow ¹  to the Lord and said, “If you will indeed deliver ²  this people into our ³  hand, then we will utterly destroy ⁴  their cities.”

When David and his men came to the city, they found it burned. ¹  Their wives, sons, and daughters had been taken captive.

For they do not understand the Lord’s actions, or the way he carries out justice. ¹  The Lord ²  will permanently demolish them. ³ 

I saw ¹  that thorns had grown up all over it, the ground ²  was covered with weeds, and its stone wall was broken down.

Jerusalem certainly stumbles, Judah falls, for their words and their actions offend the Lord; ¹  they rebel against his royal authority. ² 

“The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with chiseled stone; the sycamore fig trees have been cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.” ¹ 

So Moab wails over its demise ¹  – they all wail! Completely devastated, they moan about what has happened to the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth. ² 

“‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?”