Indeed, this is what the Lord says to me: “The Lord will be like a growling lion, like a young lion growling over its prey. ¹  Though a whole group of shepherds gathers against it, it is not afraid of their shouts or intimidated by their yelling. ²  In this same way the Lord who commands armies will descend to do battle on Mount Zion and on its hill. ³ 

If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this: “Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease. Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war. Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation. Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹ 

The mother who had seven children ¹  will grow faint. All the breath will go out of her. ²  Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life. It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. ³  She will suffer shame and humiliation. ⁴  I will cause any of them who are still left alive to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies,” ⁵  says the Lord.

For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ¹  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ²  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword.

For ¹  the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²  says, ‘If you go to Egypt, I will pour out my wrath on you just as I poured out my anger and wrath on the citizens of Jerusalem. ³  You will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. ⁴  You will never see this place again.’ ⁵ 

But ¹  listen to what the Lord has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The Lord says, ‘I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, “As surely as the Lord God lives….” ² 

and say to the scrub land of the Negev, ‘Hear the word of the Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, ¹  I am about to start a fire in you, ²  and it will devour every green tree and every dry tree in you. The flaming fire will not be extinguished, and the whole surface of the ground from the Negev to the north will be scorched by it.

Therefore, as surely as I live,” says the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel, “be certain that Moab will become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah. They will be overrun by weeds, ¹  filled with salt pits, ²  and permanently desolate. Those of my people who are left ³  will plunder their belongings; ⁴  those who are left in Judah ⁵  will take possession of their land.”