7. Your country has been deserted. Your cities have been burned down. The food from your fields is being eaten up by outsiders. They are doing it right in front of you. Your land has been completely destroyed. It looks as if strangers have taken it over.
8. The city of Zion is left like a hut where someone stands guard in a vineyard. It is left like an empty cabin in a melon field. It's like a city that is being attacked.
9. The Lord who rules over all has let some people live through that time of trouble. If he hadn't, we would have become like Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah.