For this is what the sovereign Lord says: “In the beginning my people went to live temporarily in Egypt; Assyria oppressed them for no good reason.

“I, the Lord, the God of Israel, say: ‘The exiles whom I sent away from here to the land of Babylon ¹  are like those good figs. I consider them to be good.

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation ¹  too. I will repay them for all they have done!’” ² 

But just listen to what the Lord has to say about ¹  the king who occupies David’s throne and all your fellow countrymen who are still living in this city of Jerusalem ²  and were not carried off into exile with you.

The Lord says, ¹  “Army of Babylon, ²  go and attack a nation that lives in peace and security. They have no gates or walls to protect them. ³  They live all alone.

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.’

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born ¹  will be disgraced. Indeed, ²  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

I have opened up the place where my weapons are stored. ¹  I have brought out the weapons for carrying out my wrath. ²  For I, the Lord God who rules over all, ³  have work to carry out in the land of Babylonia. ⁴ 

Kill all her soldiers! ¹  Let them be slaughtered! ²  They are doomed, ³  for their day of reckoning ⁴  has come, the time for them to be punished.”

“Listen! I am opposed to you, you proud city,” ¹  says the Lord God who rules over all. ²  “Indeed, ³  your day of reckoning ⁴  has come, the time when I will punish you. ⁵ 

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 

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 

You who have escaped the sword, ¹  go, do not delay. ²  Remember the Lord in a faraway land. Think about Jerusalem. ³ 

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!’

the word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel ¹  the son of Buzi, ²  at the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. ³  The hand ⁴  of the Lord came on him there).

Go to the exiles, to your fellow countrymen, ¹  and speak to them – say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ whether they pay attention or not.”

Then a wind ¹  lifted me up and carried me to the exiles in Babylonia, ²  in the vision given to me by the Spirit of God. Then the vision I had seen went up from me.

He plucked off its topmost shoot; he brought it to a land of merchants and planted it in a city of traders.

He took one from the royal family, ¹  made a treaty with him, and put him under oath. ²  He then took the leaders of the land

so it would be a lowly kingdom which could not rise on its own but must keep its treaty with him in order to stand.