The fields will be a barren waste, covered with sulfur and salt; nothing will be planted, and not even weeds will grow there. Your land will be like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed when he was furiously angry.

Your country has been devastated, and your cities have been burned to the ground. While you look on, foreigners take over your land and bring everything to ruin.

Jerusalem alone is left, a city under siege---as defenseless as a guard's hut in a vineyard or a shed in a cucumber field.

I will let it be overgrown with weeds. I will not trim the vines or hoe the ground; instead, I will let briers and thorns cover it. I will even forbid the clouds to let rain fall on it."

I have heard the LORD Almighty say, "All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins.

I asked, "How long will it be like this, Lord?" He answered, "Until the cities are ruined and empty---until the houses are uninhabited---until the land itself is a desolate wasteland.

The LORD is going to devastate the earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth's surface and scatter its people.

and thorn bushes and briers are growing on my people's land. Weep for all the houses where people were happy and for the city that was full of life.

Even the palace will be abandoned and the capital city totally deserted. Homes and the forts that guarded them will be in ruins forever. Wild donkeys will roam there, and sheep will find pasture there.

Your sacred cities are like a desert; Jerusalem is a deserted ruin,

The LORD says, "I will make Jerusalem a pile of ruins, a place where jackals live; the cities of Judah will become a desert, a place where no one lives."

This whole land will be left in ruins and will be a shocking sight, and the neighboring nations will serve the king of Babylonia for seventy years.

Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah, together with its kings and leaders, were made to drink from it, so that they would become a desert, a terrible and shocking sight, and so that people would use their name as a curse---as they still do.

The LORD has abandoned his people like a lion that leaves its cave. The horrors of war and the LORD's fierce anger have turned the country into a desert.

The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, said, "You yourselves have seen the destruction I brought on Jerusalem and all the other cities of Judah. Even now they are still in ruins, and no one lives in them

This very day your land lies in ruins and no one lives in it. It has become a horrifying sight, and people use its name as a curse because the LORD could no longer endure your wicked and evil practices.

because Mount Zion lies lonely and deserted, and wild jackals prowl through its ruins.

I will make the country a desolate wasteland, and the power they were so proud of will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will be so wild that no one will be able to travel through them.

When I punish the people for their sins and make the country a wasteland, then they will know that I am the LORD."

In the first year of his reign I was studying the sacred books and thinking about the seventy years that Jerusalem would be in ruins, according to what the LORD had told the prophet Jeremiah.

Listen to us, O God; look at us and see the trouble we are in and the suffering of the city that bears your name. We are praying to you because you are merciful, not because we have done right.

Even though the fig trees have no fruit and no grapes grow on the vines, even though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no grain, even though the sheep all die and the cattle stalls are empty,

"When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that it will soon be destroyed.

In the countries to which the LORD will scatter you, the people will be shocked at what has happened to you; they will make fun of you and ridicule you.

Then the whole world will ask, 'Why did the LORD do this to their land? What was the reason for his fierce anger?'

They served other gods that they had never worshiped before, gods that the LORD had forbidden them to worship.

The LORD became furiously angry, and in his great anger he uprooted them from their land and threw them into a foreign land, and there they are today.'

This Temple will become a pile of ruins, and everyone who passes by will be shocked and amazed. 'Why did the LORD do this to this land and this Temple?' they will ask.

They have made this land a thing of horror, to be despised forever. All who pass by will be shocked at what they see; they will shake their heads in amazement.

I will bring such terrible destruction on this city that everyone who passes by will be shocked and amazed.

No one anywhere, not even rulers of foreign nations, believed that any invader could enter Jerusalem's gates.

"When I am angry and furious with you and punish you, all the nations around you will be terrified. They will look at you with disgust and make fun of you.