I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword ¹  after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanently uninhabited mound (it remains that way to this very day). ¹ 

Your chosen ¹  cities have become a desert; Zion has become a desert, Jerusalem ²  is a desolate ruin.

All this will happen because the Lord said, ¹  “The whole land will be desolate; however, I will not completely destroy it.

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

The inhabited towns will be left in ruins and the land will be devastated. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

“Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals.

I will make ¹  the land desolate because they have acted unfaithfully, declares the sovereign Lord.”

I will lay waste your cities; and you will become desolate. Then you will know that I am the Lord!

This is what the sovereign Lord says: While the whole earth rejoices, I will turn you into a desolation.

The desolate land will be plowed, instead of being desolate in the sight of everyone who passes by.

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

I will turn the land of Egypt into a desolation in the midst of desolate lands; for forty years her cities will lie desolate in the midst of ruined cities. I will scatter Egypt among the nations and disperse them among foreign countries.

As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so will I deal with you – you will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all of Edom – all of it! Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild animals ¹  multiply against you.

Your land is devastated, your cities burned with fire. Right before your eyes your crops are being destroyed by foreign invaders. ¹  They leave behind devastation and destruction. ² 

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,

At that time ¹  their fortified cities will be like the abandoned summits of the Amorites, ²  which they abandoned because of the Israelites; there will be desolation.

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.”

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.