Then you will look and smile, you will be excited and your heart will swell with pride. For the riches of distant lands will belong to you and the wealth of nations will come to you.

Their descendants will be known among the nations, their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will recognize that the Lord has blessed them.”

Nations will see your vindication, and all kings your splendor. You will be called by a new name that the Lord himself will give you.

Look down from heaven and take notice, from your holy, majestic palace! Where are your zeal and power? Do not hold back your tender compassion!

Since ancient times no one has heard or perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who intervenes for those who wait for him.

Hear the word of the Lord, you who respect what he has to say! Your countrymen, who hate you and exclude you, supposedly for the sake of my name, say, “May the Lord be glorified, then we will witness your joy.” But they will be put to shame.

When you see this, you will be happy, and you will be revived. The Lord will reveal his power to his servants and his anger to his enemies.

“I hate their deeds and thoughts! So I am coming to gather all the nations and ethnic groups; they will come and witness my splendor.

“They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, and the fire that consumes them will not die out. All people will find the sight abhorrent.”

Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.”

“How can you say, ‘I have not made myself unclean. I have not paid allegiance to the gods called Baal.’ Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! Think about the things you have done there! You are like a flighty, young female camel that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path.

“Look up at the hilltops and consider this. You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods.

Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did.

“These people have denied what the Lord says. They have said, ‘That is not so! No harm will come to us. We will not experience war and famine.

Tell them: ‘Hear this, you foolish people who have no understanding, who have eyes but do not discern, who have ears but do not perceive:

Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

So I said to the Lord, “O Lord who rules over all, you are a just judge! You examine people’s hearts and minds. I want to see you pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.”

But you, Lord, know all about me. You watch me and test my devotion to you. Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered! Appoint a time when they will be killed!

People of Jerusalem, I have seen your adulterous worship, your shameless prostitution to, and your lustful pursuit of, other gods. I have seen your disgusting acts of worship on the hills throughout the countryside. You are doomed to destruction! How long will you continue to be unclean?’”

They will be like a shrub in the desert. They will not experience good things even when they happen. It will be as though they were growing in the desert, in a salt land where no one can live.