"If you obey the LORD your God and do everything he commands, he will make you his own people, as he has promised.

The LORD will give you many children, many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he promised your ancestors to give you.

The LORD your God will make you the leader among the nations and not a follower; you will always prosper and never fail if you obey faithfully all his commands that I am giving you today.

The LORD gives a signal to call for a distant nation. He whistles for them to come from the ends of the earth. And here they come, swiftly, quickly!

The LORD spoke to me when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army, supported by troops from all the nations and races that were subject to him, were attacking Jerusalem and its nearby towns.

And then there will be a fourth empire, as strong as iron, which shatters and breaks everything. And just as iron shatters everything, it will shatter and crush all the earlier empires.

The toes---partly iron and partly clay---mean that part of the empire will be strong and part of it weak.

I will gather all the nations and bring them to the Valley of Judgment. There I will judge them for all they have done to my people. They have scattered the Israelites in foreign countries and divided Israel, my land.

The king was very angry; so he sent his soldiers, who killed those murderers and burned down their city.

At that time Emperor Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Roman Empire.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets and stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!

And so your Temple will be abandoned and empty.

"You will see 'The Awful Horror' of which the prophet Daniel spoke. It will be standing in the holy place." (Note to the reader: understand what this means!)

"Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills.

"You will see 'The Awful Horror' standing in the place where he should not be." (Note to the reader: understand what this means!) "Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills.

For the trouble of those days will be far worse than any the world has ever known from the very beginning when God created the world until the present time. Nor will there ever be anything like it again.

The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side.

They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you!"

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

For those will be 'The Days of Punishment,' to make come true all that the Scriptures say.

Some will be killed by the sword, and others will be taken as prisoners to all countries; and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up.

While they look on helplessly, their babies will be battered to death, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be raped."

The enemies robbed her of all her treasures. She saw them enter the Temple itself, Where the LORD had forbidden Gentiles to go.

Our wives have been raped on Mount Zion itself; in every Judean village our daughters have been forced to submit.

Our leaders have been taken and hanged; our elders are shown no respect.

And so, Amaziah, the LORD says to you, 'Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your children will be killed in war. Your land will be divided up and given to others, and you yourself will die in a heathen country. And the people of Israel will certainly be taken away from their own land into exile.' "

How terrible it will be in those days for women who are pregnant and for mothers with little babies!

For the trouble at that time will be far more terrible than any there has ever been, from the beginning of the world to this very day. Nor will there ever be anything like it again.

Some will be killed by the sword, and others will be taken as prisoners to all countries; and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up.

and throughout the land two-thirds of the people will die.

And I will test the third that survives and will purify them as silver is purified by fire. I will test them as gold is tested. Then they will pray to me, and I will answer them. I will tell them that they are my people, and they will confess that I am their God."

"I have already decided on their punishment, and their sentence is written down. I will not overlook what they have done, but will repay them

The LORD says, "No one destroys good grapes; instead, they make wine with them. Neither will I destroy all my people---I will save those who serve me.

But God has already reduced the number of days; had he not done so, nobody would survive. For the sake of his chosen people, however, God will reduce the days.

And Isaiah exclaims about Israel: "Even if the people of Israel are as many as the grains of sand by the sea, yet only a few of them will be saved;

It is as Isaiah had said before, "If the Lord Almighty had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah."

But the heavenly Jerusalem is free, and she is our mother.

For the scripture says, "Be happy, you childless woman! Shout and cry with joy, you who never felt the pains of childbirth! For the woman who was deserted will have more children than the woman whose husband never left her."