I will destroy Daughter Zion, who is as delicate and defenseless as a young maiden.

This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away. He will be like a clay vessel that no one wants. Why will he and his children be forced into exile? Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about?

Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab. Go and live in the cliffs. Be like a dove that makes its nest high on the sides of a ravine.

Ask yourselves this and consider it carefully: Have you ever seen a man give birth to a baby? Why then do I see all these strong men grabbing their stomachs in pain like a woman giving birth? And why do their faces turn so deathly pale?

“I thought to myself, ‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! What a joy it would be for me to give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ and would never cease being loyal to me.

You should have reprimanded Jeremiah from Anathoth who is pretending to be a prophet among you!

So like a lion from the thicket their enemies will kill them. Like a wolf from the desert they will destroy them. Like a leopard they will lie in wait outside their cities and totally destroy anyone who ventures out. For they have rebelled so much and done so many unfaithful things.

But just watch! The wrath of the Lord will come like a storm! Like a raging storm it will rage down on the heads of those who are wicked.

“Tell these people this, Jeremiah: ‘My eyes overflow with tears day and night without ceasing. For my people, my dear children, have suffered a crushing blow. They have suffered a serious wound.

They will hear, ‘Run! Save yourselves! Even if you must be like a lonely shrub in the desert!’

I, the Lord, once called you a thriving olive tree, one that produced beautiful fruit. But I will set you on fire, fire that will blaze with a mighty roar. Then all your branches will be good for nothing.

(8:23) I wish that my head were a well full of water and my eyes were a fountain full of tears! If they were, I could cry day and night for those of my dear people who have been killed.

I said, “I have heard a message from the Lord. A messenger has been sent among the nations to say, ‘Gather your armies and march out against her! Prepare to do battle with her!’”

“People of Babylonia, you plundered my people. That made you happy and glad. You frolic about like calves in a pasture. Your joyous sounds are like the neighs of a stallion.

A curse on anyone who is lax in doing the Lord’s work! A curse on anyone who keeps from carrying out his destruction!

They will surround Jerusalem like men guarding a field because they have rebelled against me,” says the Lord.

For I, the Lord, promise: “David will never lack a successor to occupy the throne over the nation of Israel.

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

The Lord says, “I will cause a destructive wind to blow against Babylon and the people who inhabit Babylonia.

They did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’