As for your New Moons and your appointed festivals, I abhor them. They've become a burden to me; I've grown weary of carrying that burden.

"Please come, and let's reason together," implores the LORD. "Even though your sins are like scarlet, they'll be white like snow. Though they're like crimson, they'll become like wool.

"How the faithful city has become a whore, she who used to be filled with justice! Righteousness used to reside within her, but now only murderers live there.

Your silver has become dross, your best wine is diluted with water.

The LORD of the Heavenly Armies has declared this so I could hear it: "Surely many houses will become desolate, great and beautiful houses, without occupants.

Then I asked, "For how long, LORD?" He replied: "Until cities lie waste, without inhabitants, and houses without people; and the land becomes utterly desolate.

"They'll pass through the land, while greatly distressed and hungry. When they are hungry, they'll become enraged, and they'll curse their king and their god. They'll turn their faces upwards,

From the wrath of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies the land has been scorched, and the people have become like fuel for the fire; no one will spare his neighbor.

to deprive the needy of justice and to rob the poor of my people of their rights, so that widows may become their spoil and so that they may plunder orphans!

"The light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame, and it will burn and consume Assyria's thorns and briers in a single day.

At that time, his burden will depart from your shoulder and his yoke from your neck. Indeed, the yoke will be broken, because you've become obese."

"Look! God yes God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid. For the LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation."

In answer, all of them will tell you, "You've also become as weak as we are! You have become just like us!'

The LORD of the Heavenly Armies has sworn: "Surely as I have planned, that's what she will become; and just as I have determined, so will it remain

A message about Damascus: "Look! Damascus will cease to be a city. Instead, it will become a pile of ruins.

"At that time, Jacob's glory will have become weakened, and his strong flesh will turn gaunt;

"The water sources of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will become dry and parched.

And the bulrushes along the Nile, along the mouth of the Nile, will wither away. All the sown fields of the Nile will become parched, and they will be blown away; there will be nothing left.

The fishermen will groan, and all who cast hooks into the Nile will lament; those who spread nets upon the water will become weaker and weaker.

The princes of Zoan have become fools, and the princes of Memphis deluded; the leaders of its tribes have led Egypt astray.

And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians. Everyone to whom it is mentioned will be afraid, because of the uplifted hand of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies that is turning in their direction.

I'll set him like a peg into a secure place; he will become a throne of honor to his father's house.

At that time, the LORD of the Heavenly Armies will become a glorious crown, a beautiful diadem for the remnant of his people,

So, then, the message from the LORD to them will become: "Do this and do that, do this and do that, line upon line, line upon line, a little here, a little there," so that they will go, but fall backward, and be injured, snared, and captured.

But as for you, don't start mocking, or your chains will become tighter; for I have heard from the LORD of the Heavenly Armies about destruction, and it is decreed against the whole land.

Then I'll besiege Aruel, and there will be sorrow and mourning; she will become to me like an altar fireplace.

"But the hordes of your enemies will become like fine dust, and the hordes of tyrants like flying chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,

Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Aruel, all that attack her and her fortification and besiege her, will become like a dream, with its visions in the night

"And this entire vision has become for you like the words of a sealed book. When people give it to someone who can read, and say, "Read this, please,' he answers, "I cannot, because it is sealed.'

Then the Lord said: "Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, worship of me has become merely like rules taught by human beings.

But Pharaoh's protection will become your shame, and sheltering in Egypt's shadow your longing.

therefore, for you this sin will become like a breach in a high wall that is about to collapse, bulging out, and whose crash comes suddenly in an instant.

"For the palace will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted; the citadel and watchtower will become barren wastes forever, the delight of wild donkeys, and a pasture for flocks,

until the Spirit from on high is poured upon us, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest."

Edom's streams will be turned into burning sulfur, and its dust into sulfur; its land will become pitch.

Thorns will grow over its palaces, nettles and brambles its fortresses. It will become a haunt for jackals, a home for ostriches.

the burning sands will become a pool, and the thirsty ground fountains of water. In the haunts of jackals there will be a verdant resting place with reeds and rushes."

""Didn't you hear how in the distant past I decided to do it, how I planned from days of old? Now I've made it happen that fortified cities become devastated, besieged heaps.

Their inhabitants are devoid of power, and are terrified and put to shame. They've become like plants in the field, like green shoots, like grass on rooftops, scorched by the east wind.

""I know when you rise up and when you sit down, your comings and goings and how you've become enraged at me.

"Then some of your own sons, who will come from your loins, whom you will father, will be taken away to become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.'"

Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be lowered; the rough ground will become level, and the mountain ridges made a plain.

But this is a people who have been robbed and plundered, all of them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons. They have become prey, with no one to rescue them; they have been made loot, with no one to say, "Send them back!'

This is what the LORD says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "For your sake I will send to Babylon, and bring them all down as fugitives. Now as for the Babylonians, their ringing cry will become lamentation.

The blacksmith prepares a tool and works in the coals, then fashions an idol with hammers, working by the strength of his arm. He even becomes hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint.

"Pay attention to me, my people! Listen to me, my nation! For instruction will go out from me, and my justice will become a light for the nations.

Their cobwebs cannot become clothing, they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are deeds of iniquity, and acts of violence fill their hands.

Truth is missing, and whoever turns away from evil becomes a prey." "Then the LORD looked, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

The least of them will become a thousand, and the smallest one a mighty nation. "I am the LORD; When the time is right, I will do this swiftly."

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy rag; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our iniquities sweep us away.

Your holy cities have become a desert; Zion has become like a desert, Jerusalem a desolation.

Our holy Temple and our splendor, where our ancestors praised you, have become a conflagration of fire, and all our dearest places have become ruins.

Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a fold for herds, for my people who have sought me.