'Cities' in the Bible

For, behold, I am calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” declares the Lord; “and they will come and they will set each one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls round about and against all the cities of Judah.

“The young lions have roared at him,They have roared loudly.And they have made his land a waste;His cities have been destroyed, without inhabitant.

“But where are your godsWhich you made for yourself?Let them arise, if they can save youIn the time of your trouble;For according to the number of your citiesAre your gods, O Judah.

Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say,“Blow the trumpet in the land;Cry aloud and say,‘Assemble yourselves, and let us goInto the fortified cities.’

“A lion has gone up from his thicket,And a destroyer of nations has set out;He has gone out from his placeTo make your land a waste.Your cities will be ruinsWithout inhabitant.

“Report it to the nations, now!Proclaim over Jerusalem,‘Besiegers come from a far country,And lift their voices against the cities of Judah.

I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness,And all its cities were pulled downBefore the Lord, before His fierce anger.

Therefore a lion from the forest will slay them,A wolf of the deserts will destroy them,A leopard is watching their cities.Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces,Because their transgressions are many,Their apostasies are numerous.

“They will devour your harvest and your food;They will devour your sons and your daughters;They will devour your flocks and your herds;They will devour your vines and your fig trees;They will demolish with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.

Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

Then I will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a ruin.

Why are we sitting still?Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified citiesAnd let us perish there,Because the Lord our God has doomed usAnd given us poisoned water to drink,For we have sinned against the Lord.

“I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,A haunt of jackals;And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

The sound of a report! Behold, it comes—A great commotion out of the land of the north—To make the cities of JudahA desolation, a haunt of jackals.

And the Lord said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Hear the words of this covenant and do them.

Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they surely will not save them in the time of their disaster.

For your gods are as many as your cities, O Judah; and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to the shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.

The cities of the Negev have been locked up,And there is no one to open them;All Judah has been carried into exile,Wholly carried into exile.

They will come in from the cities of Judah and from the environs of Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, from the lowland, from the hill country and from the Negev, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of the Lord.

But let that man be like the citiesWhich the Lord overthrew without relenting,And let him hear an outcry in the morningAnd a shout of alarm at noon;

For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:“You are like Gilead to Me,Like the summit of Lebanon;Yet most assuredly I will make you like a wilderness,Like cities which are not inhabited.

Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse, as it is this day;

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the Lord’s house all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them. Do not omit a word!

“Set up for yourself roadmarks,Place for yourself guideposts;Direct your mind to the highway,The way by which you went.Return, O virgin of Israel,Return to these your cities.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Once again they will speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities when I restore their fortunes,‘The Lord bless you, O abode of righteousness,O holy hill!’

Judah and all its cities will dwell together in it, the farmer and they who go about with flocks.

Men will buy fields for money, sign and seal deeds, and call in witnesses in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland and in the cities of the Negev; for I will restore their fortunes,’ declares the Lord.”

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Yet again there will be heard in this place, of which you say, “It is a waste, without man and without beast,” that is, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast,

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘There will again be in this place which is waste, without man or beast, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds who rest their flocks.

In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the Negev, in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah, the flocks will again pass under the hands of the one who numbers them,’ says the Lord.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army, with all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities, saying,

when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the remaining cities of Judah, that is, Lachish and Azekah, for they alone remained as fortified cities among the cities of Judah.

Behold, I am going to command,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring them back to this city; and they will fight against it and take it and burn it with fire; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.’”

So you go and read from the scroll which you have written at my dictation the words of the Lord to the people in the Lord’s house on a fast day. And also you shall read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities.

Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.

As Jeremiah was still not going back, he said, “Go on back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah, and stay with him among the people; or else go anywhere it seems right for you to go.” So the captain of the bodyguard gave him a ration and a gift and let him go.

Now as for me, behold, I am going to stay at Mizpah to stand for you before the Chaldeans who come to us; but as for you, gather in wine and summer fruit and oil and put them in your storage vessels, and live in your cities that you have taken over.”

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen all the calamity that I have brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah; and behold, this day they are in ruins and no one lives in them,

Therefore My wrath and My anger were poured out and burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, so they have become a ruin and a desolation as it is this day.

But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune.

“As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and did not all this come into His mind?

“Give wings to Moab,For she will flee away;And her cities will become a desolation,Without inhabitants in them.

“Moab has been destroyed and men have gone up to his cities;His choicest young men have also gone down to the slaughter,”Declares the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

against Kerioth, Bozrah and all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near.

“Leave the cities and dwell among the crags,O inhabitants of Moab,And be like a dove that nestsBeyond the mouth of the chasm.

Concerning the sons of Ammon. Thus says the Lord:“Does Israel have no sons?Or has he no heirs?Why then has Malcam taken possession of GadAnd his people settled in its cities?

For I have sworn by Myself,” declares the Lord, “that Bozrah will become an object of horror, a reproach, a ruin and a curse; and all its cities will become perpetual ruins.”

“The arrogant one will stumble and fallWith no one to raise him up;And I will set fire to his citiesAnd it will devour all his environs.”

“Her cities have become an object of horror,A parched land and a desert,A land in which no man livesAnd through which no son of man passes.