Pack your bags for exile, you inhabitants of poor dear Egypt. ¹  For Memphis will be laid waste. It will lie in ruins ²  and be uninhabited.

Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! ¹  Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited.”

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

On its ruins all the birds of the sky will live, and all the wild animals ¹  will walk ²  on its branches.

I will multiply your people ¹  – the whole house of Israel, all of it. The cities will be populated and the ruins rebuilt.

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: In the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will populate the cities and the ruins will be rebuilt.

Isaac’s centers of worship ¹  will become desolate; Israel’s holy places will be in ruins. I will attack Jeroboam’s dynasty with the sword.” ² 

Indeed, ¹  Gaza will be deserted ²  and Ashkelon will become a heap of ruins. ³  Invaders will drive away the people of Ashdod by noon, ⁴  and Ekron will be overthrown. ⁵ 

The Lord ¹  will attack the north ²  and destroy Assyria. He will make Nineveh a heap of ruins; it will be as barren ³  as the desert.

For I solemnly swear,” ¹  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ²  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ³  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

This temple will become a heap of ruins; ¹  everyone who passes by it will be shocked and will hiss out their scorn, ²  saying, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?’

¹ Certainly you must have heard! ²  Long ago I worked it out, In ancient times I planned ³  it; and now I am bringing it to pass. The plan is this: Fortified cities will crash into heaps of ruins. ⁴ 

Yet ¹  God will make you a permanent heap of ruins. ²  He will scoop you up ³  and remove you from your home; ⁴  he will uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)

Indeed, a man will grab his brother right in his father’s house ¹  and say, ²  ‘You own a coat – you be our leader! This heap of ruins will be under your control.’ ³ 

Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! ¹  The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, ²  demolished ³  its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins. ⁴ 

Indeed, ¹  you have made the city ²  into a heap of rubble, the fortified town into a heap of ruins; the fortress of foreigners ³  is no longer a city, it will never be rebuilt.

¹ Certainly you must have heard! ²  Long ago I worked it out, in ancient times I planned ³  it, and now I am bringing it to pass. The plan is this: Fortified cities will crash into heaps of ruins. ⁴ 

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.

Your perpetual ruins will be rebuilt; ¹  you will reestablish the ancient foundations. You will be called, ‘The one who repairs broken walls, the one who makes the streets inhabitable again.’ ² 

Like a lion that has come up from its lair ¹  the one who destroys nations has set out from his home base. ²  He is coming out to lay your land waste. Your cities will become ruins and lie uninhabited.