³⁷ You will become a thing of horror,^(A) a byword^(B) and an object of ridicule^(C) among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.^(D)

⁹ I will summon^(A) all the peoples of the north^(B) and my servant^(C) Nebuchadnezzar^(D) 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^[a](E) them and make them an object of horror and scorn,^(F) and an everlasting ruin.^(G)

⁹ I will make them abhorrent^(A) and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword,^(B) a curse^[a](C) and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish^(D) them.

¹³ Just as you, Judah and Israel, have been a curse^[a](A) among the nations, so I will save^(B) you, and you will be a blessing.^[b](C) Do not be afraid,^(D) but let your hands be strong.^(E)”

²² Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it.^{(A) 23} The whole land will be a burning waste^(B) of salt^(C) and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,^(D) Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.^{(E) 24} All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land?^(F) Why this fierce, burning anger?”

²⁵ 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.^{(G) 26} They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. ²⁷ Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.^{(H) 28} In furious anger and in great wrath^(I) the Lord uprooted^(J) them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”