Ezekiel 6:6-7

6:6 In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out. ¹  6:7 The slain will fall among you and then you will know that I am the Lord. ² 

Ezekiel 6:14

6:14 I will stretch out my hand against them ³  and make the land a desolate waste from the wilderness to Riblah, ⁴  in all the places where they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

Ezekiel 36:3

36:3 So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely because they have made you desolate and crushed you from all directions, so that you have become the property of the rest of the nations, and have become the subject of gossip ⁵  and slander among the people,

Isaiah 6:11

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

Jeremiah 4:27

4:27 All this will happen because the Lord said, ⁶ 

“The whole land will be desolate;

however, I will not completely destroy it.

Jeremiah 9:10-11

The Coming Destruction Calls For Mourning

9:10 I said, ⁷ 

“I will weep and mourn ⁸  for the grasslands on the mountains, ⁹ 

I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness

because they are so scorched no one travels through them.

The sound of livestock is no longer heard there.

Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields

have fled and are gone.”

9:11 The Lord said, ¹⁰ 

“I will make Jerusalem ¹¹  a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ¹² 

I will destroy the towns of Judah

so that no one will be able to live in them.”

Jeremiah 10:22

10:22 Listen! News is coming even now. ¹³ 

The rumble of a great army is heard approaching ¹⁴  from a land in the north. ¹⁵ 

It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble,

places where only jackals live.

Jeremiah 18:16

18:16 So their land will become an object of horror. ¹⁶ 

People will forever hiss out their scorn over it.

All who pass that way will be filled with horror

and will shake their heads in derision. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 32:28

32:28 Therefore I, the Lord, say: ¹⁸  ‘I will indeed hand ¹⁹  this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. ²⁰  They will capture it.

Jeremiah 33:10

33:10 “I, the Lord, say: ²¹  ‘You and your people are saying ²²  about this place, “It lies in ruins. There are no people or animals in it.” That is true. The towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem ²³  will soon be desolate, uninhabited either by people or by animals. But happy sounds will again be heard in these places.

Jeremiah 33:12

33:12 “I, the Lord who rules over all, say: ²⁴  ‘This place will indeed lie in ruins. There will be no people or animals in it. But there will again be in it and in its towns sheepfolds where shepherds can rest their sheep.

Micah 7:13

7:13 The earth will become desolate ²⁵ 

because of what its inhabitants have done. ²⁶ 

Zechariah 7:14

7:14 ‘Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.’ Thus the land had become desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful ²⁷  land a waste.”

[6:6]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb translated “wiped out” is used to describe the judgment of the Flood (Gen 6:7; 7:4, 23).

[6:7]  ² sn The phrase you will know that I am the Lord concludes over sixty oracles in the book of Ezekiel and indicates the ultimate goal of God’s action. The phrase is often used in the book of Exodus as well (Exod 7:5; 14:4, 18). By Ezekiel’s day the people had forgotten that the Lord (Yahweh) was their covenant God and had turned to other gods. They had to be reminded that Yahweh alone deserved to be worshiped because only he possessed the power to meet their needs. Through judgment and eventually deliverance, Israel would be reminded that Yahweh alone held their destiny in his hands.

[6:14]  ³ sn I will stretch out my hand against them is a common expression in the book of Ezekiel (14:9, 13; 16:27; 25:7; 35:3).

[6:14]  ⁴ tc The Vulgate reads the name as “Riblah,” a city north of Damascus. The MT reads Diblah, a city otherwise unknown. The letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) may have been confused in the Hebrew text. The town of Riblah was in the land of Hamath (2 Kgs 23:33) which represented the northern border of Israel (Ezek 47:14).

[36:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “lip of the tongue.”

[4:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “For this is what the Lord said,”

[9:10]  ⁷ tn The words “I said” are not in the text, but there is general agreement that Jeremiah is the speaker. Cf. the lament in 8:18-9:1. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some English versions follow the Greek text which reads a plural imperative here. Since this reading would make the transition between 9:10 and 9:11 easier it is probably not original but a translator’s way of smoothing over a difficulty.

[9:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will lift up weeping and mourning.”

[9:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “for the mountains.” However, the context makes clear that it is the grasslands or pastures on the mountains that are meant. The words “for the grasslands” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:11]  ¹⁰ tn The words “the Lord said” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the content that he is the speaker. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:11]  ¹¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[9:11]  ¹² tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.”

[10:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “The sound of a report, behold, it is coming.”

[10:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “ coming, even a great quaking.”

[10:22]  ¹⁵ sn Compare Jer 6:22.

[18:16]  ¹⁶ tn There may be a deliberate double meaning involved here. The word translated here “an object of horror” refers both to destruction (cf. 2:15; 4:17) and the horror or dismay that accompanies it (cf. 5:30; 8:21). The fact that there is no conjunction or preposition in front of the noun “hissing” that follows this suggests that the reaction is in view here, not the cause.

[18:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “an object of lasting hissing. All who pass that way will be appalled and shake their head.”

[32:28]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the speech has already been introduced as first person. So the first person style has been retained for smoother narrative style.

[32:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of…”

[32:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[33:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” For the first person rendering see the translator’s note at the end of v. 2.

[33:10]  ²² tn Heb “You.” However, the pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43. See the translator’s note on 32:36.

[33:10]  ²³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[33:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For the explanation for the first person introduction see the translator’s notes on 33:2, 10. Verses 4, 10, 12 introduce three oracles, all under the answer to the Lord’s promise to Jeremiah to show him “great and mysterious things which you still do not know about.”

[7:13]  ²⁵ tn Or “will be ruined.”

[7:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “on account of its inhabitants, because of the fruit of their deeds.”

[7:14]  ²⁷ tn Or “desirable”; traditionally “pleasant” (so many English versions; cf. TEV “This good land”).