⁴ Give them this charge for their masters: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: This is what you shall say to your masters: ⁵ It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the people and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever I please.^{(A) 6} Now I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him even the wild animals of the field to serve him.^{(B) 7} All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.^(C)

⁸ But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this king, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, then I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, says the Lord, until I have completed its destruction by his hand.^{(D) 9} You, therefore, must not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers,^[a] your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, “You shall not serve the king of Babylon.”^{(E) 10} For they are prophesying a lie to you, with the result that you will be removed far from your land; I will drive you out, and you will perish.^{(F) 11} But any nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave on its own land, says the Lord, to till it and to live there.^(G)