⁹ The Lord of armies has said to me secretly, Truly, numbers of great and fair houses will be waste, with no one living in them.

³⁸ See, your house is made waste.

¹⁴ And the Lord of armies said to me secretly, Truly, this sin will not be taken from you till your death, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

⁷ But the king was angry; and he sent his armies, and those who had put his servants to death he gave to destruction, burning down their town with fire.

¹¹ For see, at the order of the Lord the great house will be full of cracks and the little house will be broken.

¹¹ So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.

⁷ Certainly the Lord will do nothing without making clear his secret to his servants, the prophets.

¹⁰ For the strong town is without men, an unpeopled living-place; and she has become a waste land: there the young ox will take his rest, and its branches will be food for him.

¹¹ Then I said, Lord, how long? And he said in answer, Till the towns are waste and unpeopled, and the houses have no men, and the land becomes completely waste,

¹² And the Lord has taken men far away, and there are wide waste places in the land.

⁶ And I will make it waste; its branches will not be touched with the knife, or the earth worked with the spade; but blackberries and thorns will come up in it: and I will give orders to the clouds not to send rain on it.

²¹ So that the words of the Lord, which he said by the mouth of Jeremiah, might come true, till the land had had pleasure in her Sabbaths; for as long as she was waste the land kept the Sabbath, till seventy years were complete.