For did not you people of Moab laugh at the people of Israel? Did you think that they were nothing but thieves, ¹  that you shook your head in contempt ²  every time you talked about them? ³ 

I answered, ¹  “Who would listen if I spoke to them and warned them? ²  Their ears are so closed ³  that they cannot hear! Indeed, ⁴  what the Lord says is offensive to them. They do not like it at all. ⁵ 

If you do not obey me, ¹  then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. ²  And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins. She has become a dry and barren desert. No one lives in those towns any more. No one even passes through them. ¹ 

Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses. ¹ 

I will make all the people in all the kingdoms of the world horrified at what has happened to them because of what Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” ¹ 

I will bring on you lasting shame and lasting disgrace which will never be forgotten!’”

“Moab has vaunted itself against me. So make him drunk with the wine of my wrath ¹  until he splashes ²  around in his own vomit, until others treat him as a laughingstock.

A drought will come upon her land; her rivers and canals will be dried up. ¹  All of this will happen because her land is filled with idols. ²  Her people act like madmen because of ³  those idols they fear. ⁴ 

This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away. He will be like a clay vessel ¹  that no one wants. ²  Why will he and his children be forced into exile? Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about? ³ 

For a nation from the north ¹  will attack Babylon. It will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’

The terror you inspire in others ¹  and the arrogance of your heart have deceived you. You may make your home in the clefts of the rocks; you may occupy the highest places in the hills. ²  But even if you made your home where the eagles nest, I would bring you down from there,” says the Lord.