Jeremiah: ¹² Who is wise enough to take all this in? Who has heard the Eternal speak and can explain His ways to others? Can anyone say why this land has been ruined and left a wasteland, a desert where no one dares to travel?

Eternal One: ¹³ I will answer you Myself. Because they have ignored the law I gave them generations ago. They haven’t listened to My voice, and they refuse to walk in My ways. ¹⁴ Instead, they have stubbornly followed after their own hearts. They have chosen to worship images of Baal just as their ancestors taught them. ¹⁵ This is why I, the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, must now take action. Look, I will now give them bitter food to eat and poisoned water to drink. ¹⁶ I Myself will scatter them among the nations—nations neither they nor their ancestors ever knew existed—and I will hunt them down with the sword and destroy them completely.