And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah— wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’” (niv)
I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord,“ and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin.I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp.This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. (niv)
The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur— nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.All the nations will ask:“ Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”And the answer will be:“ It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.” (niv)
The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah. (niv)
