²⁰ And when they came among the nations, wherever they went, they made my holy name unclean, when it was said of them, These are the people of the Lord who have gone out from his land.

⁵ Now then, what have I here? says the Lord, for my people are taken away without cause; they are made waste and give cries of sorrow, says the Lord, and all the day the nations put shame on my name.

²⁴ For the name of God is shamed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is said in the holy Writings.

²⁴ Have you taken note of what these people have said, The two families, which the Lord took for himself, he has given up? This they say, looking down on my people as being, in their eyes, no longer a nation.

¹¹ But Moses made prayer to God, saying, Lord, why is your wrath burning against your people whom you took out of the land of Egypt, with great power and with the strength of your hand?

¹² Why let the Egyptians say, He took them out to an evil fate, to put them to death on the mountains, cutting them off from the earth? Let your wrath be turned away from them, and send not this evil on your people.

¹³ Have in mind Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you gave your oath, saying, I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and all this land will I give to your seed, as I said, to be their heritage for ever.

¹⁵ Now if you are ready, on hearing the sound of the horn, pipe, harp, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all sorts of instruments, to go down on your faces in worship before the image which I have made, it is well: but if you will not give worship, that same hour you will be put into a burning and flaming fire; and what god is there who will be able to take you out of my hands?

¹⁶ But a small number of them I will keep from the sword, from the need of food, and from disease, so that they may make clear all their disgusting ways among the nations where they come; and they will be certain that I am the Lord.

¹⁰ This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

¹¹ No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse; and will you be kept safe?

¹² Did the gods of the nations keep safe those on whom my fathers sent destruction, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

³⁵ Who among all the gods of these countries have kept their country from falling into my hands, to give cause for the thought that the Lord will keep Jerusalem from falling into my hands?

³⁰ And do not let Hezekiah make you put your faith in the Lord, saying, The Lord will certainly keep us safe, and this town will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

⁹ For when the news comes to the Canaanites and all the people of the land, they will come up, shutting us in and cutting off our name from the earth: and what will you do for the honour of your great name?

¹⁵ Now if you put to death all this people as one man, then the nations who have had word of your glory will say,

¹⁶ Because the Lord was not able to take this people into the land which he made an oath to give them, he sent destruction on them in the waste land.