For lo, I will call all the officers of the kingdoms of the north, sayeth the LORD. And they shall come, and every one shall set his seat in the gates of Jerusalem, and in all their walls round about and through all the cities of Judah.

And through them shall I declare my judgment, upon all the wickedness of those men that have forsaken me: that have offered unto strange gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.

"Go thy way, cry in the ears of Jerusalem, and say, 'Thus sayeth the LORD: I remember thee for the kindness of thy youth, and because of thy steadfast love: in that thou followedst me through the wilderness, in an untilled land.

They thought not in their hearts, 'Where have we left the LORD, that brought us out of the land of Egypt? That led us through the wilderness; through a desert and rough land; through a dry and deadly land; yea a land that no man had gone through, and wherein no man had dwelt?'

Lift up thine eyes on every side, and look, if thou be not defiled. Thou hast waited for them in the streets, and as a murderer in the wilderness. through thy whoredoms and shameful blasphemies, is the land defiled.

Then said I, "O LORD God, hast thou then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, 'Ye shall have peace,' and now the sword goeth through their lives?"

Then shall it be said to the people and to Jerusalem, "A strong wind in the high places of the wilderness cometh through the way of my people; but neither to fan nor to cleanse.

Look through Jerusalem, behold and see. Seek through her streets also within, if ye can find one man, that doth equal and right, or that laboureth to be faithful: and I shall spare him, sayeth the LORD.

What man is so wise, as to understand this? Or to whom hath the LORD spoken by mouth, that he may show this, and say, "O thou land, why perishest thou so? Wherefore art thou so burnt up, and like a wilderness that no man goeth through?"

"Judah shall mourn, men shall not go much more through his gates: the land shall be no more had in reputation, and the cry of Jerusalem shall break out.

They shall die a horrible death: and no man shall mourn for them, nor bury them, but they shall lie as dung upon the earth. They shall perish through the sword, and hunger, and their bodies shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and beasts of the earth.

and say unto them, 'Hear the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all thou people of Judah, and all ye citizens of Jerusalem, that go through this gate!

Thus the LORD commandeth: Take heed for your lives, that ye carry no burden upon you in the Sabbath, to bring it through the gates of Jerusalem:

Nevertheless, if ye will hear me, sayeth the LORD, and bear no burden into the city through this gate upon the Sabbath; If ye will hallow the Sabbath, so that ye do no work therein;

then shall there go through the gates of this city, kings and princes, that shall sit upon the stool of David: They shall be carried upon chariots, and ride upon horses, both they and their princes. Yea, whole Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem shall go herethrough, and this city shall ever be the more and more inhabited.

But if ye will not be obedient unto me, to hallow the Sabbath: so that ye will bear your burdens through the gates of Jerusalem upon the Sabbath: Then shall I set fire upon the gates of Jerusalem, and it shall burn up the houses of Jerusalem, and no man shall be able to quench it."

'And say thou unto them: This is the commandment of the LORD of Hosts the God of Israel: Drink and be drunken, spew and fall, that ye never rise: and that through the sword which I will send among you.

They have builded high places for Baal in the valley of the children of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through fire in honor of Moloch: which I never commanded them, neither came it ever in my thought, to make Judah sin with such abomination.

Thus, I say, spake the LORD God of Israel, "Concerning the houses of this city, and the houses of the kings of Judah: they shall be broken through the ordinance and weapons,

Yea, those men that have broken my covenant, and not kept the words of the covenant which they made before me - when they hewed the calf in two, and when there went through the two halves thereof -

The princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the gelded men, the Priests and all the people of the land, which went through the two sides of the calf.

But through my commandment, sayeth the LORD, they shall come again before this city, they shall fight against it, win it, and burn it. Moreover I will lay the cities of Judah so waste, that no man shall dwell therein."

Jedekiah the son of Josiah, which was made king through Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, reigned in the land of Judah, in the stead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim.

And when Zedekiah the king of Judah with his soldiers saw them, they fled, and departed out of the city by night through the king's garden, and through the port that is between the two walls, and so they went toward the wilderness.

And therefore, hear the word of the LORD, all Judah, ye that dwell in the land of Egypt. Behold, I have sworn by my great name, sayeth the LORD, that my name shall not be rehearsed through any man's mouth of Judah, in all the land of Egypt to say, 'The LORD God liveth,'

Their camels shall be stolen, and the droves of their cattle driven away. Moreover, these that be shaven will I scatter toward all the winds, and bring them to destruction: yea and that through their own familiars, sayeth the LORD.

Thou breakest my weapons of war, and yet through thee I have scattered the nations and kingdoms;

through thee have I scattered horse and horseman; yea, the chariots, and such as sat upon them;

through thee I have scattered man and woman, old and young, bachelor and maiden.

Through thee I have scattered the shepherd and his flock, the husbandman and his cattle, the princes and the rulers.

Her cities are laid waste, the land lieth unbuilded and void: it is a land where no man dwelleth, and where no man traveleth through.

"Wherefore, behold, sayeth the LORD, the time cometh that I will visit the images of Babylon, and through the whole land they shall mourn and fall.

So all the soldiers brake away, and fled out of the city by night through the way of the port between the two walls by the king's garden. Now the Chaldeans had compassed the city round about; yet went these men their way toward the wilderness.