LORD, you have made our nation grow, enlarging its territory on every side; and this has brought you honor.

Then Nebuzaradan took away to Babylonia the people who were left in the city, the remaining skilled workers, and those who had deserted to the Babylonians.

in the territory of Hamath. There the king had them beaten and put to death. So the people of Judah were carried away from their land into exile.

I will make all the people of the world horrified at them because of what Hezekiah's son Manasseh did in Jerusalem when he was king of Judah."

This is the record of the people that Nebuchadnezzar took away as prisoners: in his seventh year as king he carried away 3,023;

and in his twenty-third year, 745---taken away by Nebuzaradan. In all, 4,600 people were taken away.

At the noise of the cavalry and archers everyone will run away. Some will run to the forest; others will climb up among the rocks. Every town will be left empty, and no one will live in them again.

The LORD says, "I have abandoned Israel; I have rejected my chosen nation. I have given the people I love into the power of their enemies.

Why have you abandoned us so long? Will you ever remember us again?

I ask, then: Did God reject his own people? Certainly not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

God has not rejected his people, whom he chose from the beginning. You know what the scripture says in the passage where Elijah pleads with God against Israel:

For when they were rejected, all other people were changed from God's enemies into his friends. What will it be, then, when they are accepted? It will be life for the dead!