“Therefore, the Lord who rules over all ¹  says, ‘You have not listened to what I said. ² 

Therefore I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘I will indeed hand ²  this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. ³  They will capture it.

Therefore the Lord who rules over all says, ¹  “I will now purify them in the fires of affliction ²  and test them. The wickedness of my dear people ³  has left me no choice. What else can I do? ⁴ 

Therefore, the Lord says, “Ask the people of other nations whether they have heard of anything like this. Israel should have been like a virgin. But she has done something utterly revolting!

Therefore the Lord says, “I will stand up for your cause. I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done to you. ¹  I will dry up their sea. I will make their springs run dry. ² 

Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there. Ostriches ¹  will dwell in it too. ²  But no people will ever live there again. No one will dwell there for all time to come. ³ 

But the Lord is with me to help me like an awe-inspiring warrior. ¹  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 I, the Lord, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman. ¹  Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom ²  to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the Lord, affirm it! ³  I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you. ⁴ 

So the Lord said, ¹  “Hear, you nations! Be witnesses and take note of what will happen to these people. ² 

So I, the Lord, affirm ¹  that I am opposed to those prophets who steal messages from one another that they claim are from me. ² 

So my heart moans for Moab like a flute playing a funeral song. Yes, like a flute playing a funeral song, my heart moans for the people of Kir Heres. For the wealth they have gained will perish.

So her young men will fall in her city squares. All her soldiers will be destroyed at that time,” says the Lord. ¹ 

“So, once more I will state my case ¹  against you,” says the Lord. “I will also state it against your children and grandchildren. ² 

So I will weep with sorrow for Moab. I will cry out in sadness for all of Moab. I will moan ¹  for the people of Kir Heres.

“The Lord says, ¹  ‘That is why I will scatter your people ²  like chaff that is blown away by a desert wind. ³ 

So, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will assuredly ¹  make these people stumble to their doom. ²  Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ³  Friends and neighbors will die.’

So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ¹  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ² 

“Because of this, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘I am determined to bring disaster on you, ¹  even to the point of destroying all the Judeans here. ² 

So I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say: ¹  ‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the king of Assyria.

Like a cage filled with the birds that have been caught, ¹  their houses are filled with the gains of their fraud and deceit. ²  That is how they have gotten so rich and powerful. ³