At the sound of the approaching horsemen and archers the people of every town will flee. Some of them will hide in the thickets. Others will climb up among the rocks. All the cities will be deserted. No one will remain in them.

So ¹  take warning, Jerusalem, or I will abandon you in disgust ²  and make you desolate, a place where no one can live.”

One friend deceives another and no one tells the truth. These people have trained themselves ¹  to tell lies. They do wrong and are unable to repent.

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.”

Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, ¹  because you deserve to be revered. ²  For there is no one like you among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings. ³ 

They will lay it waste. It will lie parched ¹  and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed. ² 

A destructive army ¹  will come marching over the hilltops in the desert. For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ²  against ³  everyone from one end of the land to the other. No one will be safe. ⁴ 

The gates of the towns in southern Judah will be shut tight. ¹  No one will be able to go in or out of them. ²  All Judah will be carried off into exile. They will be completely carried off into exile.’” ³ 

Rich and poor alike will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned. People will not cut their bodies or shave off their hair to show their grief for them. ¹ 

No one will take any food to those who mourn for the dead to comfort them. No one will give them any wine to drink to console them for the loss of their father or mother.

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.

This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away. He will be like a clay vessel ¹  that no one wants. ²  Why will he and his children be forced into exile? Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about? ³ 

Yes, ¹  I will restore you to health. I will heal your wounds. I, the Lord, affirm it! ²  For you have been called an outcast, Zion, whom no one cares for.”

Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved. ¹ 

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

On all the housetops in Moab and in all its public squares there will be nothing but mourning. For I will break Moab like an unwanted jar. I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹ 

Edom will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns that were around them. No one will live there. No human being will settle in it,” says the Lord.

“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 

For a nation from the north ¹  will attack Babylon. It will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’

You will stumble and fall, you proud city; no one will help you get up. I will set fire to your towns; it will burn up everything that surrounds you.” ¹