Now behold, I have made you today like a fortified city and like an iron pillar and like bronze walls against the whole land—against the [successive] kings of Judah, against its leaders, against its priests, and against the people of the land [giving you divine strength which no hostile power can overcome].

Who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’
And to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their backs to Me,
And not their faces;
But in the time of their trouble they will say,
‘Arise [O Lord] and save us.’

“I will destroy the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem), the lovely and delicate one [so like a luxurious pasture].

But they will say, ‘That is hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act in accordance with the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

‘Ask now, and see
Whether a man can give birth [to a child].
Why then do I see every man
With his hands on his loins, as a woman in labor?
Why have all faces turned pale?

So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went into the palace of the king to a place under the storeroom and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah.

“When they are inflamed [with wine and lust during their drinking bouts], I will prepare them a feast [of My wrath]
And make them drunk, that they may rejoice
And may sleep a perpetual sleep
And not wake up,” declares the Lord.