¹⁴ ‘They have blown the trumpet and have made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude [of people]. ¹⁵ The sword is outside and virulent disease and famine are within. He who is in the field will die by the sword, and famine and disease will devour those in the city. ¹⁶ Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each over his [punishment for] sin. ¹⁷ All hands will hang limp and all knees will be as weak as water.^{(A) 18} They will also cover themselves with sackcloth; horror will overwhelm them, and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads [as evidence of grief]. ¹⁹ They will fling their silver into the streets and their gold will be [discarded] like something unclean; their silver and their gold shall not be able to save them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. These [things] cannot satisfy their soul nor fill their stomachs, for they have become their stumbling block and source of sin.^(B)

The Temple Profaned

²⁰ As for the beauty of [gold for] ornaments, they turned it to pride and from it made the images of their repulsive things (idols) and of their vile things. Therefore I will make it an unclean thing to them. ²¹ I will give it into the hands of strangers (Babylonians) as plunder and to the wicked of the earth as spoil, and they shall profane it. ²² I will also turn My face away from them, and they will desecrate My secret treasure (the Jerusalem temple); and robbers will enter [irreverently] into it (the Holy of Holies) and violate it.

²³ ‘Prepare the chain [for imprisonment], for the land is full of bloody crimes [murders committed under the pretense of civil justice] and the city is full of violence.