For the Lord says, “Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings a nation will swoop down on Moab.

All the people and their leaders had agreed to this. They had agreed to free their male and female slaves and not keep them enslaved any longer. They originally complied with the covenant and freed them.

I the King, whose name is the Lord who rules over all, swear this: I swear as surely as I live that a conqueror is coming. He will be as imposing as Mount Tabor is among the mountains, as Mount Carmel is against the backdrop of the sea.

In fact, I hear a cry like that of a woman in labor, a cry of anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first baby. It is the cry of Daughter Zion gasping for breath, reaching out for help, saying, “I am done in! My life is ebbing away before these murderers!”

Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’

O royal family descended from David. The Lord says: ‘See to it that people each day are judged fairly. Deliver those who have been robbed from those who oppress them. Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you. It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out because of the evil that you have done.

Kings will come against it with their armies. They will encamp in siege all around it. Each of them will devastate the portion assigned to him.

For the religion of these people is worthless. They cut down a tree in the forest, and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools.

“I will abandon my nation. I will forsake the people I call my own. I will turn my beloved people over to the power of their enemies.

So if a prophet prophesied peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

On all the housetops in Moab and in all its public squares there will be nothing but mourning. For I will break Moab like an unwanted jar. I, the Lord, affirm it!

I have listened to them very carefully, but they do not speak honestly. None of them regrets the evil he has done. None of them says, “I have done wrong!” All of them persist in their own wayward course like a horse charging recklessly into battle.

I said, “So now, you wailing women, hear what the Lord says. Open your ears to the words from his mouth. Teach your daughters this mournful song, and each of you teach your neighbor this lament.

But the Lord is with me to help me like an awe-inspiring warrior. Therefore those who persecute me will fail and will not prevail over me. They will be thoroughly disgraced because they did not succeed. Their disgrace will never be forgotten.

So the Lord says concerning King Jehoiakim of Judah, “None of his line will occupy the throne of David. His dead body will be thrown out to be exposed to scorching heat by day and frost by night.

“The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted.

Then Zedekiah told Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about the conversation we have had. If you do, you will die.

Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited.”

For I will soon summon all the peoples of the kingdoms of the north,” says the Lord. “They will come and their kings will set up their thrones near the entrances of the gates of Jerusalem. They will attack all the walls surrounding it, and all the towns in Judah.

And you, Zion, city doomed to destruction, you accomplish nothing by wearing a beautiful dress, decking yourself out in jewels of gold, and putting on eye shadow! You are making yourself beautiful for nothing. Your lovers spurn you. They want to kill you.