³⁴ The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it.

¹⁴ And I will stretch out my hand^(A) against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah^[a]—wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord.^(B)’”

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) 10} I will banish from them the sounds^(H) of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom,^(I) the sound of millstones^(J) and the light of the lamp.^{(K) 11} This whole country will become a desolate wasteland,^(L) and these nations will serve^(M) the king of Babylon seventy years.^(N)

²¹ The land enjoyed its sabbath rests;^(A) all the time of its desolation it rested,^(B) until the seventy years^(C) were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

²³ The whole land will be a burning waste^(A) of salt^(B) and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,^(C) Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.^{(D) 24} All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land?^(E) 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.^{(F) 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.^{(G) 28} In furious anger and in great wrath^(H) the Lord uprooted^(I) them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”