⁵⁶ And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.^(A)’”

²³ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. ²⁴ They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled^(A) on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

⁶³ Just as it pleased^(A) the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please^(B) him to ruin and destroy you.^(C) You will be uprooted^(D) from the land you are entering to possess.

²⁴ “Son of man, the people living in those ruins^(A) in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many;^(B) surely the land has been given to us as our possession.’^{(C) 25} Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Since you eat^(D) meat with the blood^(E) still in it and look to your idols and shed blood, should you then possess the land?^{(F) 26} You rely on your sword, you do detestable things,^(G) and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife.^(H) Should you then possess the land?’

²⁷ “Say this to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, those who are left in the ruins will fall by the sword, those out in the country I will give to the wild animals to be devoured, and those in strongholds and caves will die of a plague.^{(I) 28} I will make the land a desolate waste, and her proud strength will come to an end, and the mountains^(J) of Israel will become desolate so that no one will cross them.^{(K) 29} Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolate^(L) waste because of all the detestable things they have done.’^(M)

¹⁷ He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians,^[a](A) who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare young men^(B) or young women, the elderly or the infirm.^(C) God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar.^{(D) 18} He carried to Babylon all the articles^(E) from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. ¹⁹ They set fire^(F) to God’s temple^(G) and broke down the wall^(H) of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed^(I) everything of value there.^(J)

²⁰ He carried into exile^(K) to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants^(L) to him and his successors until the kingdom of Persia came to power.

¹⁵ But just as all the good things^(A) the Lord your God has promised you have come to you, so he will bring on you all the evil things^(B) he has threatened, until the Lord your God has destroyed you^(C) from this good land he has given you.^{(D) 16} If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.^(E)”

²⁸ In furious anger and in great wrath^(A) the Lord uprooted^(B) them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”

²³ You must not live according to the customs of the nations^(A) I am going to drive out before you.^(B) Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.^(C)

²⁸ And if you defile the land,^(A) it will vomit you out^(B) as it vomited out the nations that were before you.