²⁵ “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out against them one way and flee before them seven ways. You shall become an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.^(A)

¹⁸ They abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and served the sacred poles^[a] and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.^(A)

Aram and Israel Defeat Judah

⁵ Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with great slaughter.^(A)

⁹ I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says the Lord, even for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these nations around; I will utterly destroy them and make them an object of horror and of hissing and an everlasting disgrace.^[a](A)

¹⁸ Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a desolation and a waste, an object of hissing and of cursing, as they are today;^(A)