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 

Yes, your land lies in ruins; it is desolate and devastated. ¹  But now you will be too small to hold your residents, and those who devoured you will be far away.

I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, or the glad celebration of brides and grooms throughout the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. For the whole land will become a desolate wasteland.”

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.

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 

So my anger and my wrath were poured out and burned like a fire through the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. That is why they have become the desolate ruins that they are today.’

No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone. No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house. For you will lie desolate forever,” ¹  says the Lord. ² 

Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

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!”

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.

“For this is what the sovereign Lord says: When I make you desolate like the uninhabited cities, when I bring up the deep over you and the surging ¹  waters overwhelm you,

The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am the Lord. Because he said, “The Nile is mine and I made it,”

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.

I will dry up the waterways and hand the land over to ¹  evil men. I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners. I, the Lord, have spoken!

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.”

Then the nations which remain around you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruins and replanted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken – and I will do it!’

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 

Why should we die before your very eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we, with our land, will become ¹  Pharaoh’s slaves. ²  Give us seed that we may live ³  and not die. Then the land will not become desolate.” ⁴