17. Like keepers of a field they surround her, because she has been rebellious against Me.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
18. Your conduct and your deeds have brought these things on you. This is your calamity! How bitter it is! How it smites your heart!
19. My stomach, my stomach! I writhe in anguish! The pain of my heart! My heart is pounding within me! I cannot keep silent because I have heard, O my soul, the sound of the shofar, the battle-cry of war.
20. Disaster on disaster is reported. So the whole land is ruined. My tents are suddenly ravaged, my curtains in an instant.
21. How long must I see the battle standard and hear the sound of the shofar?
22. “For My people are foolish. They do not know Me. They are senseless children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they do not know.”
23. I looked at the earth and behold, it was deserted and desolate, and at the heavens and they had no light.
24. I looked at the mountains— behold, they were shaking and all the hills swaying to and fro.
25. I looked and behold, no people! All the birds of the sky had fled.
26. I looked and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness and all of its cities were in ruins before Adonai, before His fierce anger.
27. For thus says Adonai, “The whole land will be wasteland, yet I will not totally destroy it.
28. Therefore, the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow black. For I have spoken, I have purposed, nor will I relent, nor turn from it.
29. At the sound of horsemen and archers the whole city flees. They go into the thickets and climb up on the rocks. The whole city is deserted— no one dwells in it.