Your land is a desolation; your cities burned with fire. Strangers devour your land before you; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Except Jehovah of Hosts had left us a small remnant, we would be as Sodom; we would be as Gomorrah.

and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor dug; but briers and thorns shall come up. And I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

Then I said, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities have been smashed to ruins without inhabitant, and the houses without a man, and the land is left devastated,

and until Jehovah has sent the men far away, and the desolation in the midst of the land is great.

Jehovah shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon your father's house, days that have not come since the days that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

And they shall come, and all of them shall rest in the steep valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and on all the thorns, and on all the pastures.

And it shall be in that day that a man shall keep alive a young cow and two sheep;

And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place where there were a thousand vines, worth a thousand pieces of silver, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

And all hills which were hoed with the hoe, you shall not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be a place to turn the ox loose, and for sheep to trample.

Yet the fortified city shall be desolate, and the dwelling forsaken and left like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall it lie down and finish off its branches.

On the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city;

because the palaces shall be abandoned, the multitude of the city shall be deserted. Instead, the mound and tower shall be for dens forever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;

I will make waste the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation. And I will make the rivers coastlands, and I will dry up the pools.

The lion has come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the nations has set out; he has gone forth from his place to make your land a waste. Your cities will fall into ruins without inhabitant.

Moreover I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the eyes of all who pass by.

In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and found guilty, your idols broken and brought to an end, your incense altars cut down, and your works blotted out.

Then the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall become desolate; and you shall know that I am Jehovah.

Then set the pot empty on the coals, that it may become hot and its bronze may burn, that its filthiness may be melted in it, that its scum may be consumed.

Thus says the Lord Jehovah: The whole earth will rejoice when I make you desolate.

She is empty, desolate, and waste. And the heart is melted, and the knees knocking; and trembling is in all the loins; and all of their faces are flushed.

And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

O your perversity! Shall the former be esteemed as the potter's clay; for shall the product say of him who made it, He did not make me? Or shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, He has had no understanding?

And I shall stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; I shall wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it face down.

Jehovah watches over the sojourners; He relieves the fatherless and widow; but the way of the wicked He turns upside down.

But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, These who have turned the world upside down have come here, too;

And Jehovah will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations where Jehovah will drive you.

And Jehovah will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known; wood and stone.

I have said, I will dash them in pieces, I will bring to an end the memory of them from among men,

Remember, I beseech You, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations;

I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know. Why should he kill you so that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant in Judah perish?

Israel is like scattered sheep, driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured him, and last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has crushed his bones.

You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter into the wind: and I will draw out a sword after them.

Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man who is My Associate, says Jehovah of Hosts. Strike the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. And I will turn My hand on the little ones.

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined. And I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, It is My people, and they shall say, Jehovah is my God.

1 Epistle of JACOB 0 -the VW-edition name as properly derived from the Greek (Iakobos) Jacob, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings.