Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out and your throats become dry. But you say, 'It is useless for you to try and stop me because I love those foreign gods and want to pursue them!'

"My, how good you have become at chasing after your lovers! Why, you could even teach prostitutes a thing or two!

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, he may not take her back again. Doing that would utterly defile the land. But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. So what makes you think you can return to me?" says the Lord.

Like a lion that has come up from its lair the one who destroys nations has set out from his home base. He is coming out to lay your land waste. Your cities will become ruins and lie uninhabited.

I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins. The Lord had brought this all about because of his blazing anger.

Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected. They have become as hardheaded as a rock. They refuse to change their ways.

The people cry out, "We have heard reports about them! We have become helpless with fear! Anguish grips us, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby!

I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, or the glad celebration of brides and grooms throughout the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. For the whole land will become a desolate wasteland."

The Lord says, "These people are like soldiers who have readied their bows. Their tongues are always ready to shoot out lies. They have become powerful in the land, but they have not done so by honest means. Indeed, they do one evil thing after another and do not pay attention to me.

These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing.

You have been the object of Israel's hopes. You have saved them when they were in trouble. Why have you become like a resident foreigner in the land? Why have you become like a traveler who only stops in to spend the night?

Their widows will become in my sight more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashores. At noontime I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their young men. I will cause anguish and terror to fall suddenly upon them.

Because of this, the Lord said, "You must repent of such words and thoughts! If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless, I will again allow you to be my spokesman. They must become as you have been. You must not become like them.

So their land will become an object of horror. People will forever hiss out their scorn over it. All who pass that way will be filled with horror and will shake their heads in derision.

Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet, and I allowed you to do it. You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me. Now I have become a constant laughingstock. Everyone ridicules me.

Sometimes I think, "I will make no mention of his message. I will not speak as his messenger any more." But then his message becomes like a fire locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. I grow weary of trying to hold it in; I cannot contain it.

But, if you do not obey these commands, I solemnly swear that this palace will become a pile of rubble. I, the Lord, affirm it!"

This whole area will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.'

I made Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. Such is already becoming the case!

How dare you claim the Lord's authority to prophesy such things! How dare you claim his authority to prophesy that this temple will become like Shiloh and that this city will become an uninhabited ruin!" Then all the people crowded around Jeremiah.

"Micah from Moresheth prophesied during the time Hezekiah was king of Judah. He told all the people of Judah, 'The Lord who rules over all says, "Zion will become a plowed field. Jerusalem will become a pile of rubble. The temple mount will become a mere wooded ridge."'

You and your people are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. But fields will again be bought in this land.

I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.

For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all 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. 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. You will never see this place again.'

So my anger and my wrath were poured out and burned like a fire through the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. That is why they have become the desolate ruins that they are today.'

That is what will result from your making me angry by what you are doing. You are making me angry by sacrificing to other gods here in the land of Egypt where you live. You will be destroyed for doing that! You will become an example used in curses and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth.

I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle or perish from starvation. People of every class will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse.

Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses.

Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited."

Oh, how shattered Moab will be! Oh, how her people will wail! Oh, how she will turn away in shame! Moab will become an object of ridicule, a terrifying sight to all the nations that surround her."

Because you did that, I, the Lord, affirm that a time is coming when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, hear the sound of the battle cry. It will become a mound covered with ruins. Its villages will be burned to the ground. Then Israel will take back its land from those who took their land from them. I, the Lord, affirm it!

For I solemnly swear," says the Lord, "that Bozrah will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever."

"Edom will become an object of horror. All who pass by it will be filled with horror; they will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

"Hazor will become a permanent wasteland, a place where only jackals live. No one will live there. No human being will settle in it."

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born will be disgraced. Indeed, Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

Babylon hammered the whole world to pieces. But see how that 'hammer' has been broken and shattered! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear when he hears news of their coming. Anguish will grip him, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby.

Babylon will become a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, a place where no one lives.

"See how Babylon has been captured! See how the pride of the whole earth has been taken! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins. She has become a dry and barren desert. No one lives in those towns any more. No one even passes through them.

Do not lose your courage or become afraid because of the reports that are heard in the land. For a report will come in one year. Another report will follow it in the next. There will be violence in the land with ruler fighting against ruler."