So come on, let’s go ahead and attack it by night and destroy all its fortified buildings.’

“It did no good for me to punish your people. They did not respond to such correction. You slaughtered your prophets like a voracious lion.” ¹ 

The Lord commanded the enemy, ¹  “March through the vineyards of Israel and Judah and ruin them. ²  But do not destroy them completely. Strip off their branches for these people do not belong to the Lord. ³ 

I reported, ¹  “All of them are the most stubborn of rebels! ²  They are as hard as bronze or iron. They go about telling lies. They all deal corruptly.

“I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘This shows how ²  I will ruin the highly exalted position ³  in which Judah and Jerusalem ⁴  take pride.

I will send men against it to destroy it ¹  with their axes and hatchets. They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns and throw them into the fire.

If grape pickers came to pick your grapes, would they not leave a few grapes behind? ¹  If robbers came at night, would they not pillage only what they needed? ² 

“Babylon, ¹  you are my war club, ²  my weapon for battle. I used you to smash nations. ³  I used you to destroy kingdoms.

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.

Many foreign rulers ¹  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ²  They will trample all over my chosen land. ³  They will turn my beautiful land into a desolate wasteland.

So I went to Perath and dug up ¹  the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found ²  that they were ruined; they were good for nothing.

And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. ¹  I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,’ ²  says the Lord.”

I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘You people have deserted me! You keep turning your back on me.’ ²  So I have unleashed my power against you ³  and have begun to destroy you. ⁴  I have grown tired of feeling sorry for you!” ⁵ 

Now and then ¹  there would be something wrong ²  with the pot he was molding from the clay ³  with his hands. So he would rework ⁴  the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. ⁵ 

Come down from your place of honor; sit on the dry ground, ¹  you who live in Dibon. ²  For the one who will destroy Moab will attack you; he will destroy your fortifications.

The Lord says, “I will cause a destructive wind ¹  to blow against ²  Babylon and the people who inhabit Babylonia. ³ 

Before this I had been like a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter. I did not know they were making plans to kill me. ¹  I did not know they were saying, ²  “Let’s destroy the tree along with its fruit! ³  Let’s remove Jeremiah ⁴  from the world of the living so people will not even be reminded of him any more.” ⁵ 

“I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹ 

Tell King Jehoiakim of Judah, ‘The Lord says, “You burned the scroll. You asked ¹  Jeremiah, ‘How dare you write in this scroll that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and wipe out all the people and animals on it?’” ² 

“Sharpen ¹  your arrows! Fill your quivers! ²  The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in ³  the kings of Media. ⁴  For he intends to destroy Babylonia. For that is how the Lord will get his revenge – how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple. ⁵