If you do not obey me, ¹  then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. ²  And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

The people of Gaza will shave their heads in mourning. The people of Ashkelon will be struck dumb. How long will you gash yourselves to show your sorrow, ¹  you who remain of Philistia’s power? ² 

Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! ¹  Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited.”

They will answer, ‘Moab is disgraced, for it has fallen! Wail and cry out in mourning! Announce along the Arnon River that Moab has been destroyed.’

The inhabited towns will be left in ruins and the land will be devastated. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

He broke down ¹  their strongholds ²  and devastated their cities. The land and everything in it was frightened at the sound of his roaring.

They will be desolate among desolate lands, and their cities will be among ruined cities.

I will turn you into a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

Indeed, look! The Lord is giving the command. ¹  He will smash the large house to bits, and the small house into little pieces.

Isaac’s centers of worship ¹  will become desolate; Israel’s holy places will be in ruins. I will attack Jeroboam’s dynasty with the sword.” ² 

The Lord ¹  will attack the north ²  and destroy Assyria. He will make Nineveh a heap of ruins; it will be as barren ³  as the desert.

If someone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, which is what you are.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza ¹  and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin ²  forever – it must never be rebuilt again.

In the spring, at the time when kings normally conduct wars, ¹  Joab led the army into battle and devastated the land of the Ammonites. He went and besieged Rabbah, while David stayed in Jerusalem. Joab defeated Rabbah and tore it down.

Because you did that, I, the Lord, affirm that ¹  a time is coming when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, hear the sound of the battle cry. It will become a mound covered with ruins. ²  Its villages will be burned to the ground. ³  Then Israel will take back its land from those who took their land from them. I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁴ 

therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the sovereign Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, and to the desolate ruins and the abandoned cities that have become prey and an object of derision to the rest of the nations round about –

to loot and plunder, to attack ¹  the inhabited ruins and the people gathered from the nations, who are acquiring cattle and goods, who live at the center ²  of the earth.”

The king replied ¹  to the wise men, “My decision is firm. ²  If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered ³  and your homes reduced to rubble!

I hereby decree ¹  that any people, nation, or language group that blasphemes ²  the god of Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego will be dismembered and his home reduced to rubble! For there exists no other god who can deliver in this way.”

Listen attentively, ¹  my God, and hear! Open your eyes and look on our desolated ruins ²  and the city called by your name. ³  For it is not because of our own righteous deeds that we are praying to you, ⁴  but because your compassion is abundant.