I looked and saw that there were no more people, ¹  and that all the birds in the sky had flown away.

Even if Babylon climbs high into the sky ¹  and fortifies her elevated stronghold, ²  I will send destroyers against her,” ³  says the Lord. ⁴ 

“I looked at the land and saw ¹  that it was an empty wasteland. ²  I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

The Lord says, “Do not start following pagan religious practices. ¹  Do not be in awe of signs that occur ²  in the sky even though the nations hold them in awe.

Because of this the land will mourn and the sky above will grow black. ¹  For I have made my purpose known ²  and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ³ 

The Lord is the one who ¹  by his power made the earth. He is the one who by his wisdom established the world. And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

Do any of the worthless idols ¹  of the nations cause rain to fall? Do the skies themselves send showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ²  So we put our hopes in you ³  because you alone do all this.”

I will make the children who follow one another in the line of my servant David very numerous. I will also make the Levites who minister before me very numerous. I will make them all as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sands which are on the seashore.’” ¹ 

I said, ¹  “I will weep and mourn ²  for the grasslands on the mountains, ³  I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone.”

Foreigners living there will say, ¹  ‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed. Let’s leave Babylonia ²  and each go back to his own country. For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions. It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’ ³ 

Even the stork knows when it is time to move on. ¹  The turtledove, swallow, and crane ²  recognize ³  the normal times for their migration. But my people pay no attention to ⁴  what I, the Lord, require of them. ⁵ 

Then the dead bodies of these people will be left on the ground for the birds and wild animals to eat. ¹  There will not be any survivors to scare them away.

But I, the Lord, make the following promise: ¹  I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth.

“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 

I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. ¹ 

They will die of deadly diseases. No one will mourn for them. They will not be buried. Their dead bodies will lie like manure spread on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation. Their corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals.

In this place I will thwart ¹  the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword ²  at the hands of their enemies. ³  I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.