I said, "You will not be handed over to them. I beg you to obey the LORD's message; then all will go well with you, and your life will be spared.

Those who do not find me hurt themselves; anyone who hates me loves death."

"But if a righteous person stops doing good and starts doing all the evil, disgusting things that evil people do, will he go on living? No! None of the good he did will be remembered. He will die because of his unfaithfulness and his sins.

Give up all the evil you have been doing, and get yourselves new minds and hearts. Why do you Israelites want to die?

Tell them that as surely as I, the Sovereign LORD, am the living God, I do not enjoy seeing sinners die. I would rather see them stop sinning and live. Israel, stop the evil you are doing. Why do you want to die?

"But if any nation or kingdom will not submit to his rule, then I will punish that nation by war, starvation, and disease until I have let Nebuchadnezzar destroy it completely.

I will bring such a disaster on them that all the nations of the world will be terrified. People will make fun of them, make jokes about them, ridicule them, and use their name as a curse everywhere I scatter them.

the LORD had said, "Whoever stays on in the city will die in war or of starvation or disease. But those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians will not be killed; they will at least escape with their life."

This is what the Sovereign LORD is saying: "I will send my four worst punishments on Jerusalem---war, famine, wild animals, and disease---to destroy people and animals alike.