All this will happen because the Lord said, “The whole land will be desolate; however, I will not completely destroy it.

The Lord says, “Watch out! The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh.

and on the mountains and in the fields. I will give your wealth and all your treasures away as plunder. I will give it away as the price for the sins you have committed throughout your land.

So their land will become an object of horror. People will forever hiss out their scorn over it. All who pass that way will be filled with horror and will shake their heads in derision.

Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet, and I allowed you to do it. You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me. Now I have become a constant laughingstock. Everyone ridicules me.

But I will punish you as your deeds deserve,’ says the Lord. ‘I will set fire to your palace; it will burn up everything around it.’”

People of Jerusalem, go up to Lebanon and cry out in mourning. Go to the land of Bashan and cry out loudly. Cry out in mourning from the mountains of Moab. For your allies have all been defeated.

I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; his attendants, his officials, his people,

the people of Dedan, Tema, Buz, all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples;

Then some of the elders of Judah stepped forward and spoke to all the people gathered there. They said,

But listen to what I say to you and to all these people.

‘So pay attention to what I, the Lord, have said, all you exiles whom I have sent to Babylon from Jerusalem.’

The descendants of Jacob will enjoy their former privileges. Their community will be reestablished in my favor and I will punish all who try to oppress them.

Rather, each person will die for his own sins. The teeth of the person who eats the sour grapes will themselves grow numb.

The prophet Jeremiah told all this to King Zedekiah of Judah in Jerusalem.

Micaiah, who was the son of Gemariah and the grandson of Shaphan, heard Baruch read from the scroll everything the Lord had said.

on Kerioth and Bozrah. It will come on all the towns of Moab, both far and near.

Babylon hammered the whole world to pieces. But see how that ‘hammer’ has been broken and shattered! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

Kill all her soldiers! Let them be slaughtered! They are doomed, for their day of reckoning has come, the time for them to be punished.”

You will stumble and fall, you proud city; no one will help you get up. I will set fire to your towns; it will burn up everything that surrounds you.”