⁴ Command them to go to their masters, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, you shall say this to your masters: ⁵ “I have made the earth, the men and the animals that are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to whomever pleases Me. ⁶ Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant and instrument, and I have also given the wild animals of the field to serve him. ⁷ All nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the [appointed] time [of punishment] for his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their servant.

⁸ “But any nation or kingdom that will not serve this same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish,” says the Lord, “with the sword, with famine and with pestilence (virulent disease), until I have destroyed it by Nebuchadnezzar’s hand. ⁹ And as for you, do not listen to your [counterfeit] prophets, your diviners, your dreams and dreamers, your soothsayers or your sorcerers, who say to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ ¹⁰ For they prophesy a lie to you which will cause you to be removed far from your land; and I will drive you out and you will perish. ¹¹ But the nation which will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, that nation I will let remain on its own land,” says the Lord, “to cultivate it and live in it.”’”