I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches. ¹ 

Each one will be handed over to the sword; ¹  their corpses will be eaten by jackals. ² 

For wild animals ¹  are prowling over Mount Zion, which lies desolate.

Your prophets have become like jackals among the ruins, O Israel.

Babylon will become a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. ¹  It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, a place where no one lives. ² 

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

“Hazor will become a permanent wasteland, a place where only jackals live. ¹  No one will live there. No human being will settle in it.” ² 

Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses, jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. ¹  Her time is almost up, ²  her days will not be prolonged. ³ 

The Lord said, ¹  “I will make Jerusalem ²  a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. ³  I will destroy the towns of Judah so that no one will be able to live in them.”

Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops and pant for breath like jackals. Their eyes are strained looking for food, because there is none to be found.” ¹ 

ג (Gimel) Even the jackals ¹  nurse their young at their breast, ²  but my people ³  are cruel, like ostriches ⁴  in the desert.

Her fortresses will be overgrown with thorns; thickets and weeds will grow ¹  in her fortified cities. Jackals will settle there; ostriches will live there. ² 

and rejected Esau. ¹  I turned Esau’s ²  mountains into a deserted wasteland ³  and gave his territory ⁴  to the wild jackals.”

The dry soil will become a pool of water, the parched ground springs of water. Where jackals once lived and sprawled out, grass, reeds, and papyrus will grow.

The wild animals of the desert honor me, the jackals and ostriches, because I put water in the desert and streams in the wilderness, to quench the thirst of my chosen people,

Listen! News is coming even now. ¹  The rumble of a great army is heard approaching ²  from a land in the north. ³  It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live.

For this reason I ¹  will mourn and wail; I will walk around barefoot ²  and without my outer garments. ³  I will howl ⁴  like a wild dog, ⁵  and screech ⁶  like an owl. ⁷ 

Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there. Ostriches ¹  will dwell in it too. ²  But no people will ever live there again. No one will dwell there for all time to come. ³ 

Samson went and captured three hundred jackals ¹  and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. ² 

Wild animals will rest there, the ruined ¹  houses will be full of hyenas. ²  Ostriches will live there, wild goats will skip among the ruins. ³