They will console you when you see their behavior and their deeds, because you will know that it was not without reason that I have done everything which I have done in it, declares the sovereign Lord.”

Say to them: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘A great eagle with broad wings, long feathers, with full plumage which was multi-hued, came to Lebanon and took the top of the cedar.

For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road at the head of the two routes. He looks for omens: He shakes arrows, he consults idols, he examines animal livers.

“‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed, the pot whose rot is in it, whose rot has not been removed from it! Empty it piece by piece. No lot has fallen on it.

It was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down.

The property of the Levites and of the city will be in the middle of that which belongs to the prince. The portion between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin will be for the prince.

Then for your part take an iron frying pan and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it. It is to be under siege; you are to besiege it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of your siege are completed. Take a third and slash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will unleash a sword behind them.

“The prince who is among them will raise his belongings onto his shoulder in darkness, and will go out. He will dig a hole in the wall to leave through. He will cover his face so that he cannot see the land with his eyes.

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on this very day, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there.