Look, the Lord is ready to devastate the earth and leave it in ruins; he will mar its surface and scatter its inhabitants.

The earth is defiled by its inhabitants, for they have violated laws, disregarded the regulation, and broken the permanent treaty.

He will give discernment to the one who makes judicial decisions, and strength to those who defend the city from attackers.

No resident of Zion will say, “I am ill”; the people who live there will have their sin forgiven.

to open blind eyes, to release prisoners from dungeons, those who live in darkness from prisons.

Sing to the Lord a brand new song! Praise him from the horizon of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and everything that lives in it, you coastlands and those who live there!

Yes, your land lies in ruins; it is desolate and devastated. But now you will be too small to hold your residents, and those who devoured you will be far away.

Yet the children born during your time of bereavement will say within your hearing, ‘This place is too cramped for us, make room for us so we can live here.’

Shake off the dirt! Get up, captive Jerusalem! Take off the iron chains around your neck, O captive daughter Zion!

For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your children will conquer nations and will resettle desolate cities.

They sit among the tombs and keep watch all night long. They eat pork, and broth from unclean sacrificial meat is in their pans.

Then the Lord said, “This means destruction will break out from the north on all who live in the land.

Like lions his enemies roar victoriously over him; they raise their voices in triumph. They have laid his land waste; his cities have been burned down and deserted.

So take warning, Jerusalem, or I will abandon you in disgust and make you desolate, a place where no one can live.”

They do one act of violence after another, and one deceitful thing after another. They refuse to pay attention to me,” says the Lord.

“Hear the terms of the covenant I made with Israel and pass them on to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem.

The Lord said to me, “The people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem have plotted rebellion against me!

The Lord told me, “Tell the king and the queen mother, ‘Surrender your thrones, for your glorious crowns will be removed from your heads.

I, the Lord, say: ‘That is how I will deal with this city and its citizens. I will make it like Topheth.

I will kill everything living in Jerusalem, people and animals alike! They will die from terrible diseases.