“Something horrible and shocking is going on in the land of Judah:

I ¹  have refused ²  to touch such things; ³  they are like loathsome food to me. ⁴ 

Then I said, “I am sickened by the thought that the sovereign One ¹  might become inactive. ² 

Here is why this will be so: ¹  Before the child knows how to reject evil and choose what is right, the land ²  whose two kings you fear will be desolate. ³ 

“So the time will certainly come ¹  when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole land will be put to shame. All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst. ² 

The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; ¹  the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout. Yet the harvest will disappear ²  in the day of disease and incurable pain.

Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ¹  For Judah has profaned ²  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ³ 

God gives a man riches, property, and wealth so that he lacks nothing that his heart ¹  desires, ²  yet God does not enable ³  him to enjoy ⁴  the fruit of his labor ⁵  – instead, someone else ⁶  enjoys ⁷  it! ⁸  This is fruitless and a grave misfortune. ⁹