For as the loincloth clings to [the] loins of a person, so I caused to cling to me all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah,' {declares} Yahweh, 'to be for me a people, and a name, and a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.'

And I will make them as a terror, an evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, as a disgrace and a proverb, as a taunt and a curse, in all the places where I will drive them.

And they did not say, 'Where [is] Yahweh, the one who brought us up from the land of Egypt, the one who led us in the desert, in a land of desert plains and gorges, in a land of dryness and deep darkness, in a land {that no one passes through}, and no human lives there?'

[Is] Israel a slave? Or {a slave born in a house}? Why has he become plunder?

A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out. He has gone out from his place to make your land as a horror, your cities will go to ruin {without} inhabitant.

Therefore a lion from [the] forest will kill them, A wolf [from the] desert plains will devastate them. A leopard [is] watching their cities, everyone [who] goes out from there will be torn, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

Flee for safety, children of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem. And in Tekoa blow a horn, and on Beth-haccherem lift up a signal, for evil looks down from [the] north, and a great destruction.

Listen, news: Look, [it is] coming, a great roar from [the] land of [the] north, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a lair of jackals.