⁴ Command them to go to their masters, saying: This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: This is what you must say to your masters: ⁵ By My great strength and outstretched arm,^(A) I made the earth,^(B) and the people, and animals on the face of the earth. I give it to anyone I please.^{[a](C) 6} So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant^(D) Nebuchadnezzar,^(E) king of Babylon. I have even given him the wild animals to serve him. ⁷ All nations will serve him, his son, and his grandson until the time for his own land comes, and then many nations and great kings will enslave him.^(F)

⁸ “As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish by sword, famine, and plague”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“until through him I have destroyed it. ⁹ But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, diviners,^(G) dreamers, fortune-tellers,^(H) or sorcerers^(I) who say to you, ‘Don’t serve the king of Babylon!’ ¹⁰ for they prophesy a lie to you so that you will be removed from your land. I will banish you, and you will perish. ¹¹ But as for the nation that will put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave it in its own land, and that nation will cultivate^[b] it and reside in it.” This is the Lord’s declaration.