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 

So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, ¹  say. ²  ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ³ 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  told me to say to this people, ²  “Take note of what I say. ³  Call for the women who mourn for the dead! Summon those who are the most skilled at it!” ⁴ 

So the Lord who rules over all ¹  said, “I will surely ²  punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle. ³  Their sons and daughters will die of starvation.

If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ¹  ‘You most certainly must drink it! ² 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  says, ‘Disaster will soon come on one nation after another. ²  A mighty storm of military destruction ³  is rising up from the distant parts of the earth.’

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. The siege began in the tenth month of the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah. ¹ 

“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 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  spoke about Edom. ²  “Is wisdom no longer to be found in Teman? ³  Can Edom’s counselors not give her any good advice? ⁴  Has all of their wisdom turned bad? ⁵ 

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.

“Listen! I am opposed to you, you proud city,” ¹  says the Lord God who rules over all. ²  “Indeed, ³  your day of reckoning ⁴  has come, the time when I will punish you. ⁵ 

“For Israel and Judah will not be forsaken ¹  by their God, the Lord who rules over all. ²  For the land of Babylonia is ³  full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. ⁴ 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  has solemnly sworn, ²  ‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers. They will swarm over it like locusts. ³  They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’

But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ¹  It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ²  His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied! It will drink their blood until it is full! ³  For the Lord God who rules over all ⁴  will offer them up as a sacrifice in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

However, I will leave some of these wicked people alive and banish them to other places. But wherever these people who survive may go, they will wish they had died rather than lived,” ¹  says the Lord who rules over all. ² 

O Lord who rules over all, ¹  you test and prove the righteous. You see into people’s hearts and minds. ²  Pay them back for what they have done because I trust you to vindicate my cause.

Indeed, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  has already spoken ²  about the valuable articles that are left in the Lord’s temple, in the royal palace of Judah, and in Jerusalem.

“For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ¹  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ³  you to your homeland. ⁴ 

The Lord who rules over all ¹  says, ‘I will bring war, ²  starvation, and disease on them. I will treat them like figs that are so rotten ³  they cannot be eaten.

When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ¹  says the Lord who rules over all, ²  “I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ³  I will deliver you from captivity. ⁴  Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.