The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ¹  But other birds of prey are all around them. ²  Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts. Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ³ 

I said, ¹  “Oh, mother, how I regret ²  that you ever gave birth to me! I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. ³  I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone. Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” ⁴ 

If you do this, ¹  then the kings and princes who follow in David’s succession ²  and ride in chariots or on horses will continue to enter through these gates, as well as their officials and the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. ³  This city will always be filled with people. ⁴ 

So the Lord God of Israel has this to say about the leaders who are ruling over his people: “You have caused my people ¹  to be dispersed and driven into exile. You have not taken care of them. So I will punish you for the evil that you have done. ²  I, the Lord, affirm it! ³ 

I, the Lord, affirm ¹  that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. ²  I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. ³  I, the Lord, affirm it!” ⁴ 

Then I will reply, ¹  ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north. I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth. Blind and lame people will come with them, so will pregnant women and women about to give birth. A vast throng of people will come back here.

I am determined to do so because the people of Israel and Judah have made me angry with all their wickedness – they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, and especially the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem ¹  have done this wickedness. ² 

“You have surely noticed what these people are saying, haven’t you? They are saying, ¹  ‘The Lord has rejected the two families of Israel and Judah ²  that he chose.’ So they have little regard that my people will ever again be a nation. ³ 

All the people living in Jerusalem ¹  and all the people who came into Jerusalem from the towns of Judah came to observe a fast before the Lord. The fast took place in the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ² 

So these officials said to the king, “This man must be put to death. For he is demoralizing ¹  the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the other people there by these things he is saying. ²  This ³  man is not seeking to help these people but is trying to harm them.” ⁴ 

In the shadows of the walls of Heshbon those trying to escape will stand helpless. For a fire will burst forth from Heshbon. Flames will shoot out from the former territory of Sihon. They will burn the foreheads of the people of Moab, the skulls of those war-loving people. ¹ 

The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. ¹  “Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining? Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land? Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom ²  have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? ³ 

Wail, you people in Heshbon, because Ai in Ammon is destroyed. Cry out in anguish, you people in the villages surrounding ¹  Rabbah. Put on sackcloth and cry out in mourning. Run about covered with gashes. ²  For your god Milcom will go into exile along with his priests and officials. ³ 

A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. ¹  A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, ²  and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them.

and say ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to those who sew bands ¹  on all their wrists ²  and make headbands ³  for heads of every size to entrap people’s lives! ⁴  Will you entrap my people’s lives, yet preserve your own lives?

“‘Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Take note ¹  that I am against your wristbands with which you entrap people’s lives ²  like birds. I will tear them from your arms and will release the people’s lives, which you hunt like birds.

When they go out to the outer court to the people, they must remove the garments they were ministering in, and place them in the holy chambers; they must put on other garments so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their garments. ¹ 

The prince will not take away any of the people’s inheritance by oppressively removing them from their property. He will give his sons an inheritance from his own possessions so that my people will not be scattered, each from his own property.’”

“At that time Michael, the great prince who watches over your people, ¹  will arise. ²  There will be a time of distress unlike any other from the nation’s beginning ³  up to that time. But at that time your own people, all those whose names are ⁴  found written in the book, will escape.

(2:1) ¹  However, ²  in the future the number of the people ³  of Israel will be like the sand of the sea which can be neither measured nor numbered. Although ⁴  it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it will be said to them, “You are ⁵  children ⁶  of the living God!”