About the Ammonites, this is what the Lord says:

Does Israel have no sons?
Is he without an heir?
Why then has Milcom dispossessed Gad
and his people settled in their cities?

For by Myself I have sworn”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“Bozrah will become a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse, and all her cities will become ruins forever.”

I have heard a message from the Lord;
a messenger has been sent among the nations:
Assemble yourselves to come against her.
Rise up for war!

About Damascus:

Hamath and Arpad are put to shame,
for they have heard a bad report and are agitated;
in the sea there is anxiety that cannot be calmed.

Damascus has become weak;
she has turned to run;
panic has gripped her.
Distress and labor pains have seized her
like a woman in labor.

Rise up, go up against a nation at ease,
one living in security.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
They have no doors, not even a gate bar;
they live alone.

My people are lost sheep;
their shepherds have led them astray,
guiding them the wrong way in the mountains.
They have wandered from mountain to hill;
they have forgotten their resting place.

All who found them devoured them.
Their adversaries said, “We’re not guilty;
instead, they have sinned against the Lord,
their righteous grazing land,
the hope of their ancestors, the Lord.”

Raise a war cry against her on every side!
She has thrown up her hands in surrender;
her defense towers have fallen;
her walls are demolished.
Since this is the Lord’s vengeance,
take out your vengeance on her;
as she has done, do the same to her.

“Go against the land of Merathaim,
and against those living in Pekod.
Put them to the sword;
completely destroy them—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
do everything I have commanded you.

This is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Israelites and Judeans alike have been oppressed.
All their captors hold them fast;
they refuse to release them.

“I will repay Babylon and all the residents of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion before your very eyes.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting;
they sit in their strongholds.
Their might is exhausted;
they have become like women.
Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze,
her gate bars are shattered.

The fords have been seized,
the marshes set on fire,
and the soldiers are terrified.

Her cities have become a desolation,
a dry and arid land,
a land where no one lives,
where no human being passes through.

You who have escaped the sword,
go and do not stand still!
Remember the Lord from far away,
and let Jerusalem come to your mind.

We are ashamed
because we have heard insults.
Humiliation covers our faces
because foreigners have entered
the holy places of the Lord’s temple.

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.

You must say, ‘Lord, You have threatened to cut off this place so that no one will live in it—man or beast. Indeed, it will remain desolate forever.’

When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River.

ב BetShe weeps aloud during the night,
with tears on her cheeks.
There is no one to offer her comfort,
not one from all her lovers.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.

ג GimelJudah has gone into exile
following affliction and harsh slavery;
she lives among the nations
but finds no place to rest.
All her pursuers have overtaken her
in narrow places.

ה HeHer adversaries have become her masters;
her enemies are at ease,
for the Lord has made her suffer
because of her many transgressions.
Her children have gone away
as captives before the adversary.

ח KhetJerusalem has sinned grievously;
therefore, she has become an object of scorn.
All who honored her now despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness.
She herself groans and turns away.

כ KafAll her people groan
while they search for bread.
They have traded their precious belongings for food
in order to stay alive.
Lord, look and see
how I have become despised.

נ NunMy transgressions have been formed into a yoke,
fastened together by His hand;
they have been placed on my neck,
and the Lord has broken my strength.
He has handed me over
to those I cannot withstand.

צ TsadeThe Lord is just,
for I have rebelled against His command.
Listen, all you people;
look at my pain.
My young men and women
have gone into captivity.

ר ReshLord, see how I am in distress.
I am churning within;
my heart is broken,
for I have been very rebellious.
Outside, the sword takes the children;
inside, there is death.

שׁ ShinPeople have heard me groaning,
but there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my misfortune;
they are glad that You have caused it.
Bring on the day You have announced,
so that they may become like me.

ת TavLet all their wickedness come before You,
and deal with them
as You have dealt with me
because of all my transgressions.
For my groans are many,
and I am sick at heart.

ז ZayinThe Lord has rejected His altar,
repudiated His sanctuary;
He has handed the walls of her palaces
over to the enemy.
They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
as on the day of an appointed festival.

ט TetZion’s gates have fallen to the ground;
He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates.
Her king and her leaders live among the nations,
instruction is no more,
and even her prophets receive
no vision from the Lord.

י YodThe elders of Daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence.
They have thrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.

פ PeAll your enemies
open their mouths against you.
They hiss and gnash their teeth,
saying, “We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for!
We have lived to see it.”

ר ReshLord, look and consider
who You have done this to.
Should women eat their own children,
the infants they have nurtured?
Should priests and prophets
be killed in the Lord’s sanctuary?

שׁ ShinBoth young and old
are lying on the ground in the streets.
My young men and women
have fallen by the sword.
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
slaughtering without compassion.

He has made me dwell in darkness
like those who have been dead for ages.

My soul has been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is.

I continually remember them
and have become depressed.

Yet I call this to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

We have sinned and rebelled;
You have not forgiven.

ס SamekYou have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us;
You have killed without compassion.

You have covered Yourself with a cloud
so that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us disgusting filth
among the peoples.

We have experienced panic and pitfall,
devastation and destruction.

ג GimelEven jackals offer their breasts
to nurse their young,
but my dear people have become cruel
like ostriches in the wilderness.

י YodThe hands of compassionate women
have cooked their own children;
they became their food
during the destruction of my dear people.

We have become orphans, fatherless;
our mothers are widows.

The elders have left the city gate,
the young men, their music.

The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned.

Why have You forgotten us forever,
abandoned us for our entire lives?

unless You have completely rejected us
and are intensely angry with us.

He said to me: “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to the rebellious pagans who have rebelled against Me. The Israelites and their ancestors have transgressed against Me to this day.

Look, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.

I have made your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Don’t be afraid of them or discouraged by the look on their faces, even though they are a rebellious house.”

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman over the house of Israel. When you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me.

But if you warn a wicked person and he does not turn from his wickedness or his wicked way, he will die for his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

But if you warn the righteous person that he should not sin, and he does not sin, he will indeed live because he listened to your warning, and you will have saved your life.”

For I have assigned you the years of their iniquity according to the number of days you lie down, 390 days; so you will bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.

Be aware that I will put cords on you so you cannot turn from side to side until you have finished the days of your siege.

But I said, “Oh, Lord God, I have never been defiled. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything that died naturally or was mauled by wild beasts. And impure meat has never entered my mouth.”

You are to burn up a third of it in the city when the days of the siege have ended; you are to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind, for I will draw a sword to chase after them.

“This is what the Lord God says: I have set this Jerusalem in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.

But she has rebelled against My ordinances with more wickedness than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that surround her. For her people have rejected My ordinances and have not walked in My statutes.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Because you have been more insubordinate than the nations around you—you have not walked in My statutes or kept My ordinances; you have not even kept the ordinances of the nations around you—

Because of all your detestable practices, I will do to you what I have never done before and what I will never do again.

“Therefore, as I live”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“I am going to cut you off and show you no pity, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable practices and abominations. Yes, I will not spare you.

When My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath on them, I will be appeased. Then after I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in My jealousy.

So you will be a disgrace and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and furious rebukes. I, Yahweh, have spoken.

I will send famine and dangerous animals against you. They will leave you childless, Jerusalem. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, Yahweh, have spoken.”

They have blown the trumpet
and prepared everything,
but no one goes to war,
for My wrath is on all her masses.

He appointed His beautiful ornaments for majesty,
but they made their abhorrent images from them,
their detestable things.
Therefore, I have made these
into something filthy for them.

Then the man clothed in linen with the writing equipment at his side reported back, “I have done as You commanded me.”

The cherubim appeared to have the form of human hands under their wings.

You have multiplied your slain in this city, filling its streets with the dead.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: The slain you have put within it are the meat, and the city is the pot, but I will remove you from it.

so you will know that I am Yahweh, whose statutes you have not followed and whose ordinances you have not practiced. Instead, you have acted according to the ordinances of the nations around you.”

“Son of man, your own relatives, those who have the right to redeem you, and the entire house of Israel, all of them, are those that the residents of Jerusalem have said this to, ‘Stay away from the Lord; this land has been given to us as a possession.’

“Therefore say: This is what the Lord God says: Though I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.

“Therefore say: This is what the Lord God says: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

“Son of man, you are living among a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

And while they look on, lift the bags to your shoulder and take them out in the dark; cover your face so that you cannot see the land. For I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”

You are to say, ‘I am a sign for you. Just as I have done, so it will be done to them; they will go into exile, into captivity.’

“Son of man, what is this proverb you people have about the land of Israel, which goes:

The days keep passing by,
and every vision fails?

This is what the Lord God says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: I am against you because you have spoken falsely and had lying visions.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.

“Since they have led My people astray saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, for when someone builds a wall they plaster it with whitewash,

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: I am against your magic bands that you ensnare people with like birds, and I will tear them from your arms. I will free the people you have ensnared like birds.

Because you have disheartened the righteous person with lies, even though I have not caused him grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked person not to turn from his evil way to save his life,

“Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and have put sinful stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I be consulted by them at all?

Even so, there will be survivors left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out. Indeed, they will come out to you, and you will observe their conduct and actions. Then you will be consoled about the devastation I have brought on Jerusalem, about all I have brought on it.

They will bring you consolation when you see their conduct and actions, and you will know that it was not without cause that I have done what I did to it.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.

“Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire as fuel, so I will give up the residents of Jerusalem.

I will turn against them. They may have escaped from the fire, but it will still consume them. And you will know that I am Yahweh when I turn against them.

I will make the land desolate because they have acted unfaithfully.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.

You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and you engaged in prostitution on them. These places should not have been built, and this should never have happened!

Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged Me with all these things, I will also bring your actions down on your own head.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Haven’t you committed immoral acts in addition to all your detestable practices?

“As I live”—the declaration of the Lord God—“your sister Sodom and her daughters have not behaved as you and your daughters have.

But Samaria did not commit even half your sins. You have multiplied your detestable practices beyond theirs and made your sisters appear righteous by all the detestable things you have committed.