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.

I will make this city an object of horror, a thing to be hissed at. All who pass by it will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

You may feel as secure as a bird nesting in the cedars of Lebanon. But oh how you will groan when the pains of judgment come on you. They will be like those of a woman giving birth to a baby.

So I will carry you far off and throw you away. I will send both you and the city I gave to you and to your ancestors out of my sight.

If you do not obey me, then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

Yes, a time is coming when watchmen will call out on the mountains of Ephraim, “Come! Let us go to Zion to worship the Lord our God!”’”

But I will most surely heal the wounds of this city and restore it and its people to health. I will show them abundant peace and security.

They had also heard him say, “The Lord says, ‘This city will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon. They will capture it.’”

Listen! Fugitives and refugees are coming from the land of Babylon. They are coming to Zion to declare there how the Lord our God is getting revenge, getting revenge for what they have done to his temple.

“But I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylonia for all the wicked things they did in Zion right before the eyes of you Judeans,” says the Lord.

Therefore the Lord says, “I will stand up for your cause. I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done to you. I will dry up their sea. I will make their springs run dry.

ו (Vav) All of Daughter Zion’s splendor has departed. Her leaders became like deer; they found no pasture, so they were too exhausted to escape from the hunter.

ק (Qof) I called for my lovers, but they had deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city. Truly they had searched for food to keep themselves alive.

ב (Bet) The precious sons of Zion were worth their weight in gold – Alas! – but now they are treated like broken clay pots, made by a potter.

כ (Kaf) The Lord fully vented his wrath; he poured out his fierce anger. He started a fire in Zion; it consumed her foundations.

“Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: I – even I – am against you, and I will execute judgment among you while the nations watch.

Pharaoh with his great army and mighty horde will not help him in battle, when siege ramps are erected and siege-walls are built to kill many people.

“‘Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, planted by water. It was fruitful and full of branches because it was well-watered.

“As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

The Babylonians crawled into bed with her. They defiled her with their lust; after she was defiled by them, she became disgusted with them.