Many foreign rulers ¹  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ²  They will trample all over my chosen land. ³  They will turn my beautiful land into a desolate wasteland.

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 

You and your people ¹  are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. ²  But fields ³  will again be bought in this land. ⁴ 

“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 

After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ¹  It will be totally desolate. All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ² 

מ (Mem) He sent down fire ¹  into my bones, and it overcame ²  them. He spread out a trapper’s net ³  for my feet; he made me turn back. He has made me desolate; I am faint all day long.

I will stretch out my hand against them ¹  and make the land a desolate waste from the wilderness to Riblah, ²  in all the places where they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with shuddering; the hands of the people of the land will tremble. Based on their behavior I will deal with them, and by their standard of justice ¹  I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

I am against ¹  you and your waterways. I will turn the land of Egypt into an utter desolate ruin from Migdol ²  to Syene, ³  as far as the border with Ethiopia.

When I turn the land of Egypt into desolation and the land is destitute of everything that fills it, when I strike all those who live in it, then they will know that I am the Lord.’

I will turn the land into a desolate ruin; her confident pride will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will be so desolate no one will pass through them.

Then they will know that I am the Lord when I turn the land into a desolate ruin because of all the abominable deeds they have committed.’ ¹ 

Say to it, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘Look, I am against you, Mount Seir; I will stretch out my hand against you and turn you into a desolate ruin.

Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all the insults you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying, “They are desolate, they have been given to us for food.”

Like fire they devour everything in their path; ¹  a flame blazes behind them. The land looks like the Garden of Eden ²  before them, but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness – for nothing escapes them! ³ 

Egypt will be desolate and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, because of the violence they did to the people of Judah, ¹  in whose land they shed innocent blood.

You will no longer be called, “Abandoned,” and your land will no longer be called “Desolate.” Indeed, ¹  you will be called “My Delight is in Her,” ²  and your land “Married.” ³  For the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married to him. ⁴ 

For I, the Lord, affirm that ¹  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

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 

Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters; they would save only their own lives, and the land would become desolate.