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

He will go back the way he came – he will not enter this city,’ says the Lord.

Jerusalem will bring me joy, and my people will bring me happiness. The sound of weeping or cries of sorrow will never be heard in her again.

The land of Judah will be inhabited by people who live in its towns as well as by farmers and shepherds with their flocks.

I will turn my face away from them and they will desecrate my treasured place. Vandals will enter it and desecrate it.

Whoever does not bow down and pay homage will immediately be thrown into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire!”

Now at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought malicious accusations against the Jews.

The mountains tremble before him, the hills convulse; the earth is laid waste before him, the world and all its inhabitants are laid waste.

as are those of Hamath also, which adjoins Damascus, and Tyre and Sidon, though they consider themselves to be very wise.

And people will settle there, and there will no longer be the threat of divine extermination – Jerusalem will dwell in security.

“You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

The Lord handed it and its king over to Israel, and Israel put the sword to all who lived there; they left no survivors. They did to its king what they had done to the king of Jericho.

They captured it and put the sword to its king, all its surrounding cities, and all who lived in it; they left no survivors. As they had done at Eglon, they annihilated it and all who lived there.

One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people – we’re all going to die!) Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.”

Say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: “‘Look, I am against you, Sidon, and I will magnify myself in your midst. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I execute judgments on her and reveal my sovereign power in her.

“And you, son of man, say to your people, ‘The righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him if he rebels. As for the wicked, his wickedness will not make him stumble if he turns from it. The righteous will not be able to live by his righteousness if he sins.’

There is a man in your kingdom who has within him a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, he proved to have insight, discernment, and wisdom like that of the gods. King Nebuchadnezzar your father appointed him chief of the magicians, astrologers, wise men, and diviners.

I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as resident foreigners.

warn them of the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do.

If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to a foreign nation, because he has dealt deceitfully with her.