The cities of the south have been shut up, And there is none opening, Judah hath been removed -- all of her, She hath been removed completely --

The Hind shall forsake the young fawn that she bringeth forth in the field because there shall be no grass.

She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? or what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?

Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour.

As the partridge that sitteth on eggs which she hath not laid, so is he that getteth riches, and not by right; in the midst of his days they shall leave him, and at his end he shall be a fool.

Therefore, the Lord says, "Ask the people of other nations whether they have heard of anything like this. Israel should have been like a virgin. But she has done something utterly revolting!

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Because he did not put me to death before my birth took place: so my mother's body would have been my last resting-place, and she would have been with child for ever.

Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.

But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

Ask ye now, and see if a male brought forth? wherefore did I see every man his hands upon his loins as she bringing forth, and all faces were turned to paleness?

“Behold, I am bringing them from the north country,
And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth,
Among them [will be] the blind and the lame,
The woman with child and she who labors in childbirth, together;
A great company, they will return here [to Jerusalem].

Thus saith Jehovah: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not.

The Lord says to her, "Stop crying! Do not shed any more tears! For your heartfelt repentance will be rewarded. Your children will return from the land of the enemy. I, the Lord, affirm it!

{How long} will you waver, O unfaithful daughter? For Yahweh has created a new [thing] on the earth, a woman, she shelters a man."

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

So shall she become to me - A name of joy, A praise and An adorning, To all the nations of the earth, - Who will hear all the good which I am doing them, And will dread and be deeply moved over all the good and over all the prosperity which I am causing her.

In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness.

That the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.

And I will shew mercies unto you, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land.

Egypt rises like the Nile,
Even like the rivers whose waters surge about.
And He has said, “I will rise, I will cover that land;
I will certainly destroy the city and its inhabitants.”

She makes a sound like the hiss of a snake when they come on with strength; they go against her with axes, like wood-cutters.

The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded; she shall be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.

And I gave them into the hand of those seeking their souls, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babel, and into the hand of his servants: and after this she shall be inhabited as the days of old, says Jehovah.

Give wings unto Moab, that she may fly and get her away: and her cities shall become a desolation, without any to dwell therein.

Moab hath ever been rich and careless from her youth up, she hath sitten and taken her ease with her treasure. She was never yet put out of one vessel into another, that is, she never went away into captivity, therefore her taste remaineth, and her savour is not yet changed.

And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, like as Israel was ashamed of Bethel, wherein she put her trust.

Moab was laid waste, and she went up from her cities, and the choice of his young men went down to the slaughter, says the King, Jehovah of armies, his name.

“Moab is shamed, for she has been broken down and shattered.
Wail and cry out!
Tell by [the banks of] the Arnon
That Moab has been destroyed.

Make her drunken, for she magnified herself above the LORD, that men may clap their hands at her vomit, and that she also may be laughed into scorn.

Those inhabiting Moab, forsook the cities and dwelt in the rock, and they were as the dove, she will nest in the regions beyond the mouth of the pit

As for Moab's pride, we have heard of it, she is very high-minded. I know her stoutness, her boasting, her arrogance, and the pride of her stomach, sayeth the LORD.

Moreover, I will make Moab cease, sayeth the LORD, from the offerings and censing that she hath made unto her gods in high places.

Oh, how shattered Moab will be! Oh, how her people will wail! Oh, how she will turn away in shame! Moab will become an object of ridicule, a terrifying sight to all the nations that surround her."

Moab will be destroyed and no longer be a nation, because she has vaunted herself against the Lord.

Therefore, lo! days are coming, Declareth Yahweh When I will cause to be heard against Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, an alarm of war, So shall she become a mound of desolation, And, her villages, with fire, shall blaze, - Then shall Israel, inherit them who inherited him, Saith Yahweh.

Why shouldst thou glory in the vales, The flowing of thy vale O apostate daughter? She who is trusting in her treasures, saying, Who shall invade, me?

Damascus is waxed feeble, she turneth herself to flee, and trembling hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail.

Alas! is she not forsaken - The city so praised! The citadel I rejoiced in!

For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain.

Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

Because of the wrath of Jehovah she shall not be inhabited, but she shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the LORD.

Shout against her round about: she hath given her hand: her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the LORD: take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.

Come from far away and attack Babylonia! Open up the places where she stores her grain! Pile her up in ruins! Destroy her completely! Do not leave anyone alive!

Call together the archers against Babylon: all ye that bend the bow, camp against it round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel.

{Therefore} desert creatures will live [there] with jackals, and daughters of ostriches will inhabit her. And she will not be inhabited again {forever}, and she will not be dwelt in {for all generations}.

They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

Leave Babylon;
save your lives, each of you!
Don’t perish because of her guilt.
For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance—
He will pay her what she deserves.

Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord's hand. She had made the whole world drunk. The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. So they have all gone mad.

Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end,

My violence and my remainder upon Babel, shall she dwelling in Zion say; and my blood to the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins. She has become a dry and barren desert. No one lives in those towns any more. No one even passes through them.

"Babylon must fall because of the Israelites she has killed, just as the earth's mortally wounded fell because of Babylon.

Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD.

And you must say, 'Babylon will sink, and she will not rise, {because of} the face of the disasters that I [am] bringing on her, and they will grow weary.'" {Thus far} the words of Jeremiah.

Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king and reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen entered into her sanctuary, whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

Breathing out grief all her people are looking for bread; they have given their desired things for food to give them life: see, O Lord, and take note; for she has become a thing of shame.

Zion's hands are outstretched; she has no comforter; the Lord has given orders to the attackers of Jacob round about him: Jerusalem has become like an unclean thing among them.

For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

(Nun) They wander blindly through the streets, defiled by the blood they shed, while no one dares to touch their garments.

And thou, take to thee an iron pan and give it a wall of iron between thee and between the city: and prepare thy face against it, and she was in siege, and press upon her. This a sign to the house of Israel.

And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.

And he said unto me the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah, is exceeding, great, and the land is filled with shed blood, and the city is full of over-reaching, - for they have said. Yahweh hath forsaken the land, - and Yahweh doth not see.

Therefore Thus, saith My Lord Yahweh, Your Main. whom ye have laid in her midst, They are the flesh, and She is the caldron, - when ye are taken out of her midst.

O, adulterous woman! In the place of her husband she received strangers.

And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.

And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

As to Samaria, as the half of thy sins -- she hath not sinned, And thou dost multiply thine abominations more than they, And dost justify thy sisters by all thy abominations that thou hast done.

And has not taken flesh with the blood for food, or given worship to the images of the children of Israel; if he has not had connection with his neighbour's wife, or come near to a woman at the time when she is unclean;

The soul that sinneth, she shall die. The son shall not bear part of the father's wickedness. The righteousness of the right shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him.

And say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.

And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.

Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.

Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.

And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.

But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.

And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.

And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.

Thou shalt feed the fire and thy blood shall be shed in the land, that thou mayest be put out of remembrance. Even I the LORD have spoken it.'"

Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations.

You are to say: This is what the Lord God says: A city that sheds blood within her walls so that her time of judgment has come and who makes idols for herself so that she is defiled!

Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.

They who are near and they who are far off from thee shall shew themselves derisive over these, - O thou of impure name, abounding in confusion!

Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.