63 Bible Verses about Ruins

“And if in spite of this you do not obey Me but act with hostility toward Me, I will act with furious hostility toward you; I will also discipline you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons; you will eat the flesh of your daughters. read more.
I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your dead bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols; I will reject you. I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. I also will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it. But I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword to chase after you. So your land will become desolate, and your cities will become ruins.

You are to gather all its spoil in the middle of the city square and completely burn up the city and all its spoil for the Lord your God. The city must remain a mound of ruins forever; it is not to be rebuilt.

The Lord will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you don’t understand, a ruthless nation, showing no respect for the old and not sparing the young. They will eat the offspring of your livestock and your land’s produce until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, oil, young of your herds, or newborn of your flocks until they cause you to perish. read more.
They will besiege you within all your gates until your high and fortified walls, that you trust in, come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all your gates throughout the land the Lord your God has given you.

I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble,
a jackals’ den.
I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,
an uninhabited place.

Therefore, I will make Samaria
a heap of ruins in the countryside,
a planting area for a vineyard.
I will roll her stones into the valley
and expose her foundations.
All her carved images will be smashed to pieces;
all her wages will be burned in the fire,
and I will destroy all her idols.
Since she collected the wages of a prostitute,
they will be used again for a prostitute.

Now I will tell you
what I am about to do to My vineyard:
I will remove its hedge,
and it will be consumed;
I will tear down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland.
It will not be pruned or weeded;
thorns and briers will grow up.
I will also give orders to the clouds
that rain should not fall on it.
For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah,
the plant He delighted in.
He looked for justice
but saw injustice,
for righteousness,
but heard cries of wretchedness.

Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” And He replied:

Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants,
houses are without people,
the land is ruined and desolate,
and the Lord drives the people far away,
leaving great emptiness in the land.
Though a tenth will remain in the land,
it will be burned again.
Like the terebinth or the oak
that leaves a stump when felled,
the holy seed is the stump.

A lion has gone up from his thicket;
a destroyer of nations has set out.
He has left his lair
to make your land a waste.
Your cities will be reduced to uninhabited ruins.

But if you do not obey these words, then I swear by Myself”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“that this house will become a ruin.”

Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out. The slain will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.

A ruin, a ruin,
I will make it a ruin!
Yet this will not happen
until He comes;
I have given the judgment to Him.

Listen and testify against the house of Jacob—
this is the declaration of the Lord God,
the God of Hosts.
I will punish the altars of Bethel
on the day I punish Israel for its crimes;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
and fall to the ground.
I will demolish the winter house
and the summer house;
the houses inlaid with ivory will be destroyed,
and the great houses will come to an end.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Isaac’s high places will be deserted,
and Israel’s sanctuaries will be in ruins;
I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam
with a sword.”

On the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. He burned the Lord’s temple, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem; he burned down all the great houses. The whole Chaldean army with the commander of the guards tore down the walls surrounding Jerusalem. read more.
Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population. But the commander of the guards left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and farmers. Now the Chaldeans broke into pieces the bronze pillars of the Lord’s temple, the water carts, and the bronze reservoir, which were in the Lord’s temple, and carried the bronze to Babylon. They also took the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the dishes, and all the bronze articles used in temple service. The commander of the guards took away the firepans and the sprinkling basins—whatever was gold or silver.

So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their choice young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; He handed them all over to him. He took everything to Babylon—all the articles of God’s temple, large and small, the treasures of the Lord’s temple, and the treasures of the king and his officials. Then the Chaldeans burned God’s temple. They tore down Jerusalem’s wall, burned down all its palaces, and destroyed all its valuable articles.

The Chaldeans next burned down the king’s palace and the people’s houses and tore down the walls of Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported the rest of the people to Babylon—those who had remained in the city and those deserters who had defected to him along with the rest of the people who had remained. However, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, left in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing, and he gave them vineyards and fields at that time.

On the tenth day of the fifth month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, entered Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon. He burned the Lord’s temple, the king’s palace, all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the nobles. The whole Chaldean army with the commander of the guards tore down all the walls surrounding Jerusalem. read more.
Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported some of the poorest of the people, as well as the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. But some of the poorest people of the land Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, left to be vinedressers and farmers. Now the Chaldeans broke into pieces the bronze pillars for the Lord’s temple and the water carts and the bronze reservoir that were in the Lord’s temple, and carried all the bronze to Babylon. They took the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling basins, dishes, and all the bronze articles used in the temple service. The commander of the guards took away the bowls, firepans, sprinkling basins, pots, lampstands, pans, and drink offering bowls—whatever was gold or silver.

You have repudiated the covenant with Your servant;
You have completely dishonored his crown.
You have broken down all his walls;
You have reduced his fortified cities to ruins.
All who pass by plunder him;
he has become an object of ridicule
to his neighbors.

Make Your way to the everlasting ruins,
to all that the enemy has destroyed in the sanctuary.

Why have You broken down its walls
so that all who pass by pick its fruit?
The boar from the forest tears it
and creatures of the field feed on it.
Return, God of Hosts.
Look down from heaven and see;
take care of this vine,
read more.
the root Your right hand has planted,
the shoot that You made strong for Yourself.
It was cut down and burned up;
they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.

Yet Lord, You are our Father;
we are the clay, and You are our potter;
we all are the work of Your hands.
Lord, do not be terribly angry
or remember our iniquity forever.
Please look—all of us are Your people!
Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
read more.
Our holy and beautiful temple,
where our fathers praised You,
has been burned with fire,
and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.
Lord, after all this, will You restrain Yourself?
Will You keep silent and afflict severely?

ה HeThe Lord is like an enemy;
He has swallowed up Israel.
He swallowed up all its palaces
and destroyed its fortified cities.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
within Daughter Judah. ו VavHe has done violence to His temple
as if it were a garden booth,
destroying His place of meeting.
The Lord has abolished
appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion.
He has despised king and priest
in His fierce anger. ז ZayinThe Lord has rejected His altar,
repudiated His sanctuary;
He has handed the walls of her palaces
over to the enemy.
They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
as on the day of an appointed festival. read more.
ח KhetThe Lord determined to destroy
the wall of Daughter Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line
and did not restrain Himself from destroying.
He made the ramparts and walls grieve;
together they waste away. ט TetZion’s gates have fallen to the ground;
He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates.
Her king and her leaders live among the nations,
instruction is no more,
and even her prophets receive
no vision from the Lord.

“This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: You have seen all the disaster I brought against Jerusalem and all Judah’s cities; look, they are a ruin today without an inhabitant in them because of their evil ways that provoked Me to anger, going and burning incense to serve other gods that they, you, and your fathers did not know. So I sent you all My servants the prophets time and time again, saying: Don’t do this detestable thing that I hate. read more.
But they did not listen or pay attention; they did not turn from their evil or stop burning incense to other gods. So My fierce wrath poured out and burned in Judah’s cities and Jerusalem’s streets so that they became the desolate ruin they are today.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, those who live in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one person, yet he received possession of the land. But we are many; the land has been given to us as a possession.’ Therefore say to them: This is what the Lord God says: You eat meat with blood in it, raise your eyes to your idols, and shed blood. Should you then receive possession of the land? read more.
You have relied on your swords, you have committed detestable acts, and each of you has defiled his neighbor’s wife. Should you then receive possession of the land? “Tell them this: This is what the Lord God says: As surely as I live, those who are in the ruins will fall by the sword, those in the open field I have given to wild animals to be devoured, and those in the strongholds and caves will die by plague. I will make the land a desolate waste, and its proud strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, with no one passing through. They will know that I am Yahweh when I make the land a desolate waste because of all the detestable acts they have committed.

For the Lord will comfort Zion;
He will comfort all her waste places,
and He will make her wilderness like Eden,
and her desert like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and melodious song.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins;
they will restore the former devastations;
they will renew the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

This is what the Lord, your Redeemer who formed you from the womb, says:

I am Yahweh, who made everything;
who stretched out the heavens by Myself;
who alone spread out the earth;
who destroys the omens of the false prophets
and makes fools of diviners;
who confounds the wise
and makes their knowledge foolishness;
who confirms the message of His servant
and fulfills the counsel of His messengers;
who says to Jerusalem, “She will be inhabited,”
and to the cities of Judah, “They will be rebuilt,”
and I will restore her ruins;

Some of you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
you will restore the foundations laid long ago;
you will be called the repairer of broken walls,
the restorer of streets where people live.

This is what the Lord says:

I will certainly restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
and show compassion on his dwellings.
Every city will be rebuilt on its mound;
every citadel will stand on its proper site.
Thanksgiving will come out of them,
a sound of celebration.
I will multiply them, and they will not decrease;
I will honor them, and they will not be insignificant.

“The days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. Just as I watched over them to uproot and to tear them down, to demolish and to destroy, and to cause disaster, so will I be attentive to build and to plant them,” says the Lord.

“You, mountains of Israel, will produce your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel, since their arrival is near. Look! I am on your side; I will turn toward you, and you will be tilled and sown. I will fill you with people, with the whole house of Israel in its entirety. The cities will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. read more.
I will fill you with people and animals, and they will increase and be fruitful. I will make you inhabited as you once were and make you better off than you were before. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. I will cause people, My people Israel, to walk on you; they will possess you, and you will be their inheritance. You will no longer deprive them of their children.

In that day
I will restore the fallen booth of David:
I will repair its gaps,
restore its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
so that they may possess
the remnant of Edom
and all the nations
that are called by My name—
this is the Lord’s declaration—

He will do this.

By the seventh month, the Israelites had settled in their towns, and the people gathered together in Jerusalem. Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his brothers began to build the altar of Israel’s God in order to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. They set up the altar on its foundation and offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening on it to the Lord even though they feared the surrounding peoples. read more.
They celebrated the Festival of Booths as prescribed, and offered burnt offerings each day, based on the number specified by ordinance for each festival day. After that, they offered the regular burnt offering and the offerings for the beginning of each month and for all the Lord’s appointed holy occasions, as well as the freewill offerings brought to the Lord. On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, even though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid. They gave money to the stonecutters and artisans, and gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so they could bring cedar wood from Lebanon to Joppa by sea, according to the authorization given them by King Cyrus of Persia. In the second month of the second year after they arrived at God’s house in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers, including the priests, the Levites, and all who had returned to Jerusalem from the captivity, began to build. They appointed the Levites who were 20 years old or more to supervise the work on the Lord’s house. Jeshua with his sons and brothers, Kadmiel with his sons, and the sons of Judah and of Henadad, with their sons and brothers, the Levites, joined together to supervise those working on the house of God. When the builders had laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple, the priests, dressed in their robes and holding trumpets, and the Levites descended from Asaph, holding cymbals, took their positions to praise the Lord, as King David of Israel had instructed. They sang with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord: “For He is good; His faithful love to Israel endures forever.” Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid. But many of the older priests, Levites, and family leaders, who had seen the first temple, wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this house, but many others shouted joyfully. The people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shouting from that of the weeping, because the people were shouting so loudly. And the sound was heard far away.

They said to me, “The remnant in the province, who survived the exile, are in great trouble and disgrace. Jerusalem’s wall has been broken down, and its gates have been burned down.” When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

After I arrived in Jerusalem and had been there three days, I got up at night and took a few men with me. I didn’t tell anyone what my God had laid on my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal I took was the one I was riding. I went out at night through the Valley Gate toward the Serpent’s Well and the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. read more.
I went on to the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but farther down it became too narrow for my animal to go through. So I went up at night by way of the valley and inspected the wall. Then heading back, I entered through the Valley Gate and returned. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, priests, nobles, officials, or the rest of those who would be doing the work. So I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned down. Come, let’s rebuild Jerusalem’s wall, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.” I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me, and what the king had said to me.

They said, “Let’s start rebuilding,” and they were encouraged to do this good work. When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked and despised us, and said, “What is this you’re doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” I gave them this reply, “The God of heaven is the One who will grant us success. We, His servants, will start building, but you have no share, right, or historic claim in Jerusalem.”

In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “The Lord of Hosts says this: These people say: The time has not come for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt.” The word of the Lord came through Haggai the prophet: read more.
“Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” Now, the Lord of Hosts says this: “Think carefully about your ways: You have planted much
but harvested little.
You eat
but never have enough to be satisfied.
You drink
but never have enough to become drunk.
You put on clothes
but never have enough to get warm.
The wage earner puts his wages
into a bag with a hole in it.” The Lord of Hosts says this: “Think carefully about your ways. Go up into the hills, bring down lumber, and build the house. Then I will be pleased with it and be glorified,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but then it amounted to little. When you brought the harvest to your house, I ruined it. Why?” This is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts. “Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house. So on your account,
the skies have withheld the dew
and the land its crops.
I have summoned a drought
on the fields and the hills,
on the grain, new wine, olive oil,
and whatever the ground yields,
on man and beast,
and on all that your hands produce.” Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and the entire remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. So the people feared the Lord. Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, delivered the Lord’s message to the people, “I am with you”—this is the Lord’s declaration. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, the spirit of the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. They began work on the house of Yahweh of Hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King Darius.

Then all who see you will recoil from you, saying,
“Nineveh is devastated;
who will show sympathy to her?”
Where can I find anyone to comfort you?

He will also stretch out His hand against the north
and destroy Assyria;
He will make Nineveh a desolate ruin,
dry as the desert.
Herds will lie down in the middle of it,
every kind of wild animal.
Both the desert owl and the screech owl
will roost in the capitals of its pillars.
Their calls will sound from the window,
but devastation will be on the threshold,
for He will expose the cedar work.
This is the self-assured city
that lives in security,
that thinks to herself:
I exist, and there is no one else.
What a desolation she has become,
a place for wild animals to lie down!
Everyone who passes by her
jeers and shakes his fist.

And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms,
the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans,
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
when God overthrew them.
It will never be inhabited
or lived in from generation to generation;
a nomad will not pitch his tent there,
and shepherds will not let their flocks rest there.
But desert creatures will lie down there,
and owls will fill the houses.
Ostriches will dwell there,
and wild goats will leap about.
read more.
Hyenas will howl in the fortresses,
and jackals, in the luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s time is almost up;
her days are almost over.

Look at the land of the Chaldeans—
a people who no longer exist.
Assyria destined it for desert creatures.
They set up their siege towers
and stripped its palaces.
They made it a ruin.

Babylon will become a heap of rubble,
a jackals’ den,
a desolation and an object of scorn,
without inhabitant.

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, turn your face toward Mount Seir and prophesy against it. Say to it: This is what the Lord God says:

Look! I am against you, Mount Seir.
I will stretch out My hand against you
and make you a desolate waste.
read more.
I will turn your cities into ruins,
and you will become a desolation.
Then you will know that I am Yahweh.

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

But you ask: “How have You loved us?”

“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.” Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Hosts says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.

Get your bags ready for exile,
inhabitant of Daughter Egypt!
For Memphis will become a desolation,
uninhabited ruins.

“Therefore this is what the Lord God says: I am going to bring a sword against you and wipe out man and animal from you. The land of Egypt will be a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am Yahweh. Because you said, ‘The Nile is my own; I made it,’ therefore, I am against you and your Nile. I will turn the land of Egypt into ruins, a desolate waste from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Cush. read more.
No human foot will pass through it, and no animal foot will pass through it. It will be uninhabited for 40 years. I will make the land of Egypt a desolation among desolate lands, and its cities will be a desolation among ruined cities for 40 years. I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them across the countries.

About Moab, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says:

Woe to Nebo, because it is about to be destroyed;
Kiriathaim will be put to shame; it will be taken captive.
The fortress will be put to shame and dismayed!

For Gaza will be abandoned,
and Ashkelon will become a ruin.
Ashdod will be driven out at noon,
and Ekron will be uprooted.
Woe, inhabitants of the seacoast,
nation of the Cherethites!
The word of the Lord is against you,
Canaan, land of the Philistines:
I will destroy you until there is no one left.
The seacoast will become pasturelands
with caves for shepherds and folds for sheep.

therefore this is what the Lord God says: See, I am against you, Tyre! I will raise up many nations against you, just as the sea raises its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and demolish her towers. I will scrape the soil from her and turn her into a bare rock.

When Israel had finished killing everyone living in Ai who had pursued them into the open country, and when every last one of them had fallen by the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the sword. The total of those who fell that day, both men and women, was 12,000—all the people of Ai. Joshua did not draw back his hand that was holding the sword until all the inhabitants of Ai were completely destroyed. read more.
Israel plundered only the cattle and spoil of that city for themselves, according to the Lord’s command that He had given Joshua. Joshua burned Ai and left it a permanent ruin, desolate to this day. He hung the body of the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take his body down from the tree. They threw it down at the entrance of the city gate and put a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

In the spring when kings march out to war, Joab led the army and destroyed the Ammonites’ land. He came to Rabbah and besieged it, but David remained in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and demolished it.

For a nation has invaded My land,
powerful and without number;
its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and it has the fangs of a lioness.
It has devastated My grapevine
and splintered My fig tree.
It has stripped off its bark and thrown it away;
its branches have turned white.
Grieve like a young woman dressed in sackcloth,
mourning for the husband of her youth.
read more.
Grain and drink offerings have been cut off
from the house of the Lord;
the priests, who are ministers of the Lord, mourn.
The fields are destroyed;
the land grieves;
indeed, the grain is destroyed;
the new wine is dried up;
and the olive oil fails.
Be ashamed, you farmers,
wail, you vinedressers,
over the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
The grapevine is dried up,
and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple—
all the trees of the orchard—have withered.
Indeed, human joy has dried up.

Look, the Lord is stripping the earth bare
and making it desolate.
He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants:
people and priest alike,
servant and master,
female servant and mistress,
buyer and seller,
lender and borrower,
creditor and debtor.
The earth will be stripped completely bare
and will be totally plundered,
for the Lord has spoken this message.read more.
The earth mourns and withers;
the world wastes away and withers;
the exalted people of the earth waste away.
The earth is polluted by its inhabitants,
for they have transgressed teachings,
overstepped decrees,
and broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse has consumed the earth,
and its inhabitants have become guilty;
the earth’s inhabitants have been burned,
and only a few survive.
The new wine mourns;
the vine withers.
All the carousers now groan.
The joyful tambourines have ceased.
The noise of the jubilant has stopped.
The joyful lyre has ceased.
They no longer sing and drink wine;
beer is bitter to those who drink it.
The city of chaos is shattered;
every house is closed to entry.
In the streets they cry for wine.
All joy grows dark;
earth’s rejoicing goes into exile.
Only desolation remains in the city;
its gate has collapsed in ruins.
For this is how it will be on earth
among the nations:
like a harvested olive tree,
like a gleaning after a grape harvest.

Therefore Jacob’s iniquity will be purged in this way,
and the result of the removal of his sin will be this:
when he makes all the altar stones
like crushed bits of chalk,
no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.
For the fortified city will be deserted,
pastures abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness.
Calves will graze there,
and there they will spread out and strip its branches.

Then the seventh poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the sanctuary from the throne, saying, “It is done!” There were flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder. And a severe earthquake occurred like no other since man has been on the earth—so great was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the Great was remembered in God’s presence; He gave her the cup filled with the wine of His fierce anger. read more.
Every island fled, and the mountains disappeared. Enormous hailstones, each weighing about 100 pounds, fell from the sky on people, and they blasphemed God for the plague of hail because that plague was extremely severe.

Then a mighty angel picked up a stone like a large millstone and threw it into the sea, saying:

In this way, Babylon the great city
will be thrown down violently
and never be found again.
The sound of harpists, musicians,
flutists, and trumpeters
will never be heard in you again;
no craftsman of any trade
will ever be found in you again;
the sound of a mill
will never be heard in you again;
the light of a lamp
will never shine in you again;
and the voice of a groom and bride
will never be heard in you again.
All this will happen
because your merchants
were the nobility of the earth,
because all the nations were deceived
by your sorcery,

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near me.” So all the people approached him. Then he repaired the Lord’s altar that had been torn down:

In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king and reigned 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, who was from Beer-sheba. Throughout the time Jehoiada the priest instructed him, Joash did what was right in the Lord’s sight. Yet the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places. read more.
Then Joash said to the priests, “All the dedicated money brought to the Lord’s temple, census money, money from vows, and all money voluntarily given for the Lord’s temple, each priest is to take from his assessor and repair whatever damage to the temple is found.” But by the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash, the priests had not repaired the damage to the temple. So King Joash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said, “Why haven’t you repaired the temple’s damage? Since you haven’t, don’t take any money from your assessors; instead, hand it over for the repair of the temple.” So the priests agreed they would not take money from the people and they would not repair the temple’s damage. Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters the Lord’s temple; in it the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money brought into the Lord’s temple. Whenever they saw there was a large amount of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest would go to the Lord’s temple and count the money found there and tie it up in bags. Then they would put the counted money into the hands of those doing the work—those who oversaw the Lord’s temple. They in turn would pay it out to those working on the Lord’s temple—the carpenters, the builders, the masons, and the stonecutters—and would use it to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the damage to the Lord’s temple and for all spending for temple repairs.

Afterward, Joash took it to heart to renovate the Lord’s temple. So he gathered the priests and Levites and said, “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel to repair the temple of your God as needed year by year, and do it quickly.”

However, the Levites did not hurry. So the king called Jehoiada the high priest and said, “Why haven’t you required the Levites to bring from Judah and Jerusalem the tax imposed by the Lord’s servant Moses and the assembly of Israel for the tent of the testimony? read more.
For the sons of that wicked Athaliah broke into the Lord’s temple and even used the sacred things of the Lord’s temple for the Baals.” At the king’s command a chest was made and placed outside the gate of the Lord’s temple. Then a proclamation was issued in Judah and Jerusalem that the tax God’s servant Moses imposed on Israel in the wilderness be brought to the Lord. All the leaders and all the people rejoiced, brought the tax, and put it in the chest until it was full. Whenever the chest was brought by the Levites to the king’s overseers, and when they saw that there was a large amount of money, the king’s secretary and the high priest’s deputy came and emptied the chest, picked it up, and returned it to its place. They did this daily and gathered the money in abundance. Then the king and Jehoiada gave it to those in charge of the labor on the Lord’s temple, who were hiring stonecutters and carpenters to renovate the Lord’s temple, also blacksmiths and coppersmiths to repair the Lord’s temple. The workmen did their work, and through them the repairs progressed. They restored God’s temple to its specifications and reinforced it.

In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent the court secretary Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple, saying, “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest so that he may total up the money brought into the Lord’s temple—the money the doorkeepers have collected from the people. It is to be put into the hands of those doing the work—those who oversee the Lord’s temple. They in turn are to give it to the workmen in the Lord’s temple to repair the damage. read more.
They are to give it to the carpenters, builders, and masons to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the temple. But no accounting is to be required from them for the money put into their hands since they work with integrity.”

In the eighteenth year of his reign, in order to cleanse the land and the temple, Josiah sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, along with Maaseiah the governor of the city and the court historian Joah son of Joahaz, to repair the temple of the Lord his God. So they went to Hilkiah the high priest, and gave him the money brought into God’s temple. The Levites and the doorkeepers had collected money from Manasseh, Ephraim, and from the entire remnant of Israel, and from all Judah, Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They put it into the hands of those doing the work—those who oversaw the Lord’s temple. They gave it to the workmen who were working in the Lord’s temple, to repair and restore the temple; read more.
they gave it to the carpenters and builders and also used it to buy quarried stone and timbers—for joining and making beams—for the buildings that Judah’s kings had destroyed. The men were doing the work with integrity. Their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites from the Merarites, and Zechariah and Meshullam from the Kohathites as supervisors. The Levites were all skilled with musical instruments. They were also over the porters and were supervising all those doing the work task by task. Some of the Levites were secretaries, officers, and gatekeepers.

A man who does not control his temper
is like a city whose wall is broken down.

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Now I would certainly be lying down in peace;
I would be asleep.
Then I would be at rest
with the kings and counselors of the earth,
who rebuilt ruined cities for themselves,

Though his face is covered with fat
and his waistline bulges with it,
he will dwell in ruined cities,
in abandoned houses destined to become piles of rubble.