'Cities' in the Bible

For, look, I [am] calling to all [the] clans of [the] kingdoms of [the] north," {declares} Yahweh, "and they will come and set each one his throne [at] the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its surrounding walls, and against all the cities of Judah.

[The] young lions have roared against him, they have {raised} their voices. And they have made his land as horror; his cities are destroyed, {without} an inhabitant.

Declare in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem and say, "Blow a horn through the land, {call with a loud voice} and say, 'Be gathered and let us go into 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 place to make your land as a horror, your cities will go to ruin {without} inhabitant.

"Report to the nations, 'Here they are!' Proclaim against Jerusalem, 'Besiegers [are] coming {from a distant land}, and they raise their voice against the cities of Judah.'

I looked and behold, the fruitful land [was] a desert, and all of its cities were ruined before Yahweh, before the face of {his burning anger}.

Therefore a lion from [the] forest will kill them, A wolf [from the] desert plains will devastate them. A leopard [is] watching their cities, everyone [who] goes out from there will be torn, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

And they will eat your harvest and your food, they will eat your sons and your daughters, they will eat your flock and your herd, they will eat your vine and your fig tree, they will smash with the sword {your fortified cities}, in which you trust.

Why [are] we sitting? Gather, and let us go into the fortified cities, and let us perish there, for Yahweh our God has caused us to perish, and has provided drink for us, water of poison, because we have sinned against Yahweh.

Listen, news: Look, [it is] coming, a great roar from [the] land of [the] north, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a lair of jackals.

And Yahweh 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 out to the gods [to] whom they [are] making smoke offerings, but they will certainly not save them in the time of their trouble.

And let that man be like the cities that Yahweh demolished without regret, and let him hear a cry for help in the morning, and an alarm at the time of noon.

For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah, "You [are like] Gilead to me, [like] the head of the Lebanon. {Surely} I will make you a desert, [like] cities [that] are not inhabited.

"Thus says Yahweh: 'Stand in the courtyard of the house of Yahweh, and you must speak to all the cities of Judah that come to bow in worship [in] the house of Yahweh all the words that I command you to speak to them. You must not omit a word.

"Set up for yourself road markers, make for yourself signposts, set your {mind} to the main road, [the] road [by which] you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, return to these your cities.

They will buy fields with money, and they will sign the deeds, and they will seal [them], and they will call witnesses as witness in the land of Benjamin, and in the surroundings of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negev, for I will restore their fortunes,' {declares} Yahweh."

The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and all his army, with all [the] kingdoms of [the] earth [under] the dominion of his hand, 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 cities of Judah that were left over--Lachish and Azekah, for these remained among the cities of Judah, the cities of fortification.

Egypt rises like the Nile, even like the rivers [whose] waters surge. And he says, "Let me rise, let me cover [the] earth, let me destroy cities, and the inhabitants in them."

And [the] arrogant [one] will stumble and fall, and there is no [one who] raises [him] up. And I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour everything around him."

Her cities have become as an [object of] horror, a dry land and a wilderness, a land in which no person lives, nor does a son of humankind pass through it.