Set up a gravestone for Moab, for it will certainly be laid in ruins! ¹  Its cities will be laid waste and become uninhabited.”

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.” ¹ 

Babylon will become a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. ¹  It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, a place where no one lives. ² 

I hear my dear people ¹  crying out ²  throughout the length and breadth of the land. ³  They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is her divine King ⁴  no longer there?’” The Lord answers, ⁵  “Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” ⁶ 

Even if they fast, I will not hear their cries for help. Even if they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. ¹  Instead, I will kill them through wars, famines, and plagues.” ² 

Then I said, “Lord, ¹  have you completely rejected the nation of Judah? Do you despise ²  the city of Zion? Why have you struck us with such force that we are beyond recovery? ³  We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it. We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror. ⁴ 

The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. ¹  “Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining? Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land? Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom ²  have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? ³ 

Like a lion that has come up from its lair ¹  the one who destroys nations has set out from his home base. ²  He is coming out to lay your land waste. Your cities will become ruins and lie uninhabited.

At the sound of the approaching horsemen and archers the people of every town will flee. Some of them will hide in the thickets. Others will climb up among the rocks. All the cities will be deserted. No one will remain in them.

Tell them: ‘Hear this, you foolish people who have no understanding, who have eyes but do not discern, who have ears but do not perceive: ¹ 

Then the Lord said, ¹  “As for you, Jeremiah, ²  do not pray for these people! Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf! Do not plead with me to save them, ³  because I will not listen to you.

The Lord says, ¹  “Yes indeed, ²  I am sending an enemy against you that will be like poisonous snakes which cannot be charmed away. ³  And they will inflict fatal wounds on you.” ⁴ 

Tell your daughters and neighbors, ‘The Lord says, “The dead bodies of people will lie scattered everywhere like manure scattered on a field. They will lie scattered on the ground like grain that has been cut down but has not been gathered.”’” ¹ 

Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, ¹  because you deserve to be revered. ²  For there is no one like you among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings. ³ 

They will lay it waste. It will lie parched ¹  and empty before me. The whole land will be laid waste. But no one living in it will pay any heed. ² 

Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ²  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ³ 

But you are always thinking and looking for ways to increase your wealth by dishonest means. Your eyes and your heart are set on killing some innocent person and committing fraud and oppression. ¹ 

Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! ¹  There has never been any like it. It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob, but some of them will be rescued out of it. ² 

Yes, ¹  I will restore you to health. I will heal your wounds. I, the Lord, affirm it! ²  For you have been called an outcast, Zion, whom no one cares for.”

They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ¹  I tried over and over again ²  to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction. ³