When you finish reading this scroll aloud, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River. ¹ 

You who have escaped the sword, ¹  go, do not delay. ²  Remember the Lord in a faraway land. Think about Jerusalem. ³ 

“‘Do not go to a house where people are feasting and sit down to eat and drink with them either.

This is what the Lord who rules over all ¹  said to me: ²  “Those who remain in Israel will be like the grapes thoroughly gleaned ³  from a vine. So go over them again, as though you were a grape harvester passing your hand over the branches one last time.” ⁴ 

“Raise up battle flags throughout the lands. Sound the trumpets calling the nations to do battle. Prepare the nations to do battle against Babylonia. ¹  Call for these kingdoms to attack her: Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. ²  Appoint a commander to lead the attack. ³  Send horses ⁴  against her like a swarm of locusts. ⁵ 

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

Yes, ¹  the Lord has this to say to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: “Like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground, you must break your rebellious will and make a new beginning; just as a farmer must clear away thorns lest the seed is wasted, you must get rid of the sin that is ruining your lives. ² 

The Lord said to me, ¹  “I have made you like a metal assayer to test my people like ore. ²  You are to observe them and evaluate how they behave.” ³ 

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born ¹  will be disgraced. Indeed, ²  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

Yes, a time is coming when watchmen ¹  will call out on the mountains of Ephraim, “Come! Let us go to Zion to worship the Lord our God!”’” ² 

You people of this generation, listen to what the Lord says. “Have I been like a wilderness to you, Israel? Have I been like a dark and dangerous land to you? ¹  Why then do you ²  say, ‘We are free to wander. ³  We will not come to you any more?’

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.’

I will bring such disaster on them that all the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified. I will make them an object of reproach, a proverbial example of disaster. I will make them an object of ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ¹  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ² 

I, the Lord, ¹  hereby promise to make you ²  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ³  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land.

Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. ¹  Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will ²  live a long time in the land that you wander about on.’ ³ 

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 

He says, “I will build myself a large palace with spacious upper rooms.” He cuts windows in its walls, panels it ¹  with cedar, and paints its rooms red. ² 

Do not listen to them. Be subject to the king of Babylon. Then you ¹  will continue to live. Why should this city be made a pile of rubble?’” ² 

He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ¹  the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

Let cries of terror be heard in their houses when you send bands of raiders unexpectedly to plunder them. ¹  For they have virtually dug a pit to capture me and have hidden traps for me to step into.