They will fight against you but never prevail over you, since I am with you to rescue you.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Keep your feet from going bare
and your throat from thirst.
But you say, “It’s hopeless;
I love strangers,
and I will continue to follow them.”

They are well-fed, eager stallions,
each neighing after someone else’s wife.

They will consume your harvest and your food.
They will consume your sons and your daughters.
They will consume your flocks and your herds.
They will consume your vines and your fig trees.
They will destroy with the sword
your fortified cities in which you trust.

They have become fat and sleek.
They have also excelled in evil matters.
They have not taken up cases,
such as the case of the fatherless, so they might prosper,
and they have not defended the rights of the needy.

The corpses of these people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land, with no one to scare them away.

Why are we just sitting here?
Gather together; let us enter the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the Lord our God has destroyed us.
He has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the Lord.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink.

Give glory to the Lord your God
before He brings darkness,
before your feet stumble
on the mountains at dusk.
You wait for light,
but He brings darkest gloom
and makes thick darkness.

This is what the Lord says concerning these people:

Truly they love to wander;
they never rest their feet.
So the Lord does not accept them.
Now He will remember their guilt
and punish their sins.

Then I will make you a fortified wall of bronze
to this people.
They will fight against you
but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
to save you and deliver you.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like manure on the face of the earth. They will be finished off by sword and famine. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.

Food won’t be provided for the mourner to comfort him because of the dead. A cup of consolation won’t be given him because of the loss of his father or mother.

Let a cry be heard from their houses
when You suddenly bring raiders against them,
for they have dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden snares for my feet.

I will spoil the plans of Judah and Jerusalem in this place. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hand of those who want to take their life. I will provide their corpses as food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.

‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will repel the weapons of war in your hands, those you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall, and I will bring them into the center of this city.

I will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, rage, and great wrath.

Therefore, this is what the Lord of Hosts says concerning the prophets:

I am about to feed them wormwood
and give them poisoned water to drink,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has spread throughout the land.

for I satisfy the thirsty person and feed all those who are weak.”

He will take Zedekiah to Babylon where he will stay until I attend to him’—this is the Lord’s declaration. ‘You will fight the Chaldeans, but you will not succeed’?”

The Chaldeans who are going to fight against this city will come, set this city on fire, and burn it along with the houses where incense has been burned to Baal on their rooftops and where drink offerings have been poured out to other gods to provoke Me to anger.

The people coming to fight the Chaldeans will fill the houses with the corpses of their own men that I strike down in My wrath and rage. I have hidden My face from this city because of all their evil.

will be handed over to their enemies, to those who want to take their life. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land.

I am about to give the command”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. I will make Judah’s cities a desolation, without inhabitant.”

The Chaldeans will then return and fight against this city. They will capture it and burn it down.

‘All the women who remain in the palace of Judah’s king will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon and will say:

Your trusted friends misled you
and overcame you.
Your feet sank into the mire,
and they deserted you.

they took all their men and went to fight with Ishmael son of Nethaniah and found him by the great pool in Gibeon.

and if you say, ‘No, instead we’ll go to the land of Egypt where we will not see war or hear the sound of the ram’s horn or hunger for food, and we’ll live there,’

Instead, we will do everything we said we would: burn incense to the queen of heaven and offer drink offerings to her just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in Judah’s cities and in Jerusalem’s streets. Then we had enough food and good things and saw no disaster,

Even her mercenaries among her
are like stall-fed calves.
They too will turn back;
together they will flee;
they will not take their stand,
for the day of their calamity is coming on them,
the time of their punishment.

I will return Israel to his grazing land,
and he will feed on Carmel and Bashan;
he will be satisfied
in the hill country of Ephraim and of Gilead.

This is what Yahweh of Hosts says:

Babylon’s thick walls will be totally demolished,
and her high gates consumed by fire.
The peoples will have labored for nothing;
the nations will exhaust themselves only to feed the fire.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the people of the land had no food.

One pillar was 27 feet tall, had a circumference of 18 feet, was hollow—four fingers thick—

and had a bronze capital on top of it. One capital, encircled by bronze latticework and pomegranates, stood 7½ feet high. The second pillar was the same, with pomegranates.