"Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "Return from your evil ways and your evil deeds!" ' But they did not hear and they did not pay attention to me," {declares} Yahweh.

[Are] not [these] the words that Yahweh proclaimed {through} the former prophets, when Jerusalem and {its surrounding towns} were inhabited and at ease, and the Negev and the Shephelah were inhabited?'"

{They made their hearts adamant} in order not to hear the law and the words that Yahweh of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets; [therefore] great wrath came from Yahweh of hosts.

But now {I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days},' {declares} Yahweh of hosts.

All the land will be transformed into a desert plateau from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But it will rise up high and it will stay in its place from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of [the] former gate, up to the Corner Gate and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.