Even I and my relatives and my associates are lending them money and grain. But let us abandon this practice of seizing collateral!

This very day return to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive trees, and their houses, along with the interest that you are exacting from them on the money, the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil.”

Our kings, our leaders, our priests, and our ancestors have not kept your law. They have not paid attention to your commandments or your testimonies by which you have solemnly admonished them.

The days of our lives add up to seventy years, or eighty, if one is especially strong. But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. Yes, they pass quickly and we fly away.

When a sentence is not executed at once against a crime, the human heart is encouraged to do evil.

Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw.

All nations gather together, the peoples assemble. Who among them announced this? Who predicted earlier events for us? Let them produce their witnesses to testify they were right; let them listen and affirm, ‘It is true.’

All of you, gather together and listen! Who among them announced these things? The Lord’s ally will carry out his desire against Babylon; he will exert his power against the Babylonians.

You assist those who delight in doing what is right, who observe your commandments. Look, you were angry because we violated them continually. How then can we be saved?

Then heaven and earth and all that is in them will sing for joy over Babylon. For destroyers from the north will attack it,” says the Lord.

They also took the pots, shovels, trimming shears, basins, pans, and all the bronze utensils used by the priests.

Violence has grown into a staff that supports wickedness. Not one of them will be left – not from their crowd, not from their wealth, not from their prominence.

I gave them my statutes and revealed my regulations to them. The one who carries them out will live by them!

I did this because they rejected my regulations, did not follow my statutes, and desecrated my Sabbaths; for their hearts followed their idols.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Edom has taken vengeance against the house of Judah; they have made themselves fully culpable by taking vengeance on them.

On that day messengers will go out from me in ships to frighten overly confident Ethiopia; panic will overtake them on the day of Egypt’s doom; for beware – it is coming!

As I watched, I saw tendons on them, then muscles appeared, and skin covered over them from above, but there was no breath in them.

So I prophesied as I was commanded, and the breath came into them; they lived and stood on their feet, an extremely great army.

“I will display my majesty among the nations. All the nations will witness the judgment I have executed, and the power I have exhibited among them.

“There will arise in his place one from her family line who will come against their army and will enter the stronghold of the king of the north and will move against them successfully.