Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this land to destroy it. The Lord told me, ‘March up against this land and destroy it!’”’” ¹ 

This is what the Lord says: “When ¹  juice is discovered in a cluster of grapes, someone says, ‘Don’t destroy it, for it contains juice.’ ²  So I will do for the sake of my servants – I will not destroy everyone. ³ 

They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain. ¹  For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea. ² 

You will not be buried with them, ¹  because you destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.

Were the nations whom my predecessors ¹  destroyed – the nations of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden in Telassar – rescued by their gods? ² 

Look, I create the craftsman, who fans the coals into a fire and forges a weapon. ¹  I create the destroyer so he might devastate.

¹ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ²  the people weighed down by evil deeds. They are offspring who do wrong, children ³  who do wicked things. They have abandoned the Lord, and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ⁴  They are alienated from him. ⁵ 

Why do you forget ¹  the Lord, who made you, who stretched out the sky ²  and founded the earth? Why do you constantly tremble all day long ³  at the anger of the oppressor, when he makes plans to destroy? Where is the anger of the oppressor? ⁴ 

A wolf and a lamb will graze together; ¹  a lion, like an ox, will eat straw, ²  and a snake’s food will be dirt. ³  They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain,” ⁴  says the Lord.