Your country has been devastated, and your cities have been burned to the ground. While you look on, foreigners take over your land and bring everything to ruin.

From that land ambassadors come down the Nile in boats made of reeds. Go back home, swift messengers! Take a message back to your land divided by rivers, to your strong and powerful nation, to your tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world.

In the fourteenth year that Hezekiah was king of Judah, Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria, attacked the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

When you went to live in Egypt as foreigners, you did so of your own free will; Assyria, however, took you away by force and paid nothing for you.

And now in Babylonia the same thing has happened: you are captives, and nothing was paid for you. Those who rule over you boast and brag and constantly show contempt for me.

The LORD has told the foreign nations to come like wild animals and devour his people.

The LORD says, "The people of Israel are like sheep, chased and scattered by lions. First, they were attacked by the emperor of Assyria, and then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia gnawed on their bones.

The king of Babylonia cut Jerusalem up and ate it. He emptied the city like a jar; like a monster he swallowed it. He took what he wanted and threw the rest away.

Let the people of Zion say, "May Babylonia be held responsible for the violence done to us!" Let the people of Jerusalem say, "May Babylonia be held responsible for what we have suffered!"

and so Nebuchadnezzar came with all his army and attacked Jerusalem on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign. They set up camp outside the city, built siege walls around it,

On the ninth day of the fourth month of that same year, when the famine was so bad that the people had nothing left to eat,

But the Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah, captured him in the plains near Jericho, and all his soldiers deserted him.

At Riblah he put Zedekiah's sons to death while Zedekiah was looking on and he also had the officials of Judah executed.

He came closer to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it,

The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side.

"When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that it will soon be destroyed.

For those will be 'The Days of Punishment,' to make come true all that the Scriptures say.

Some will be killed by the sword, and others will be taken as prisoners to all countries; and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up.

You will open the eyes of the blind and set free those who sit in dark prisons.

Is this the man who destroyed cities and turned the world into a desert? Is this the man who never freed his prisoners or let them go home?"

I myself have stirred Cyrus to action to fulfill my purpose and put things right. I will straighten out every road that he travels. He will rebuild my city, Jerusalem, and set my captive people free. No one has hired him or bribed him to do this." The LORD Almighty has spoken.

He heard the groans of prisoners and set free those who were condemned to die.

In the year that Evil-merodach became king of Babylonia, he showed kindness to King Jehoiachin of Judah by releasing him from prison. This happened on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin had been taken away as a prisoner.

I will give it to those who oppressed you, to those who made you lie down in the streets and trampled on you as if you were dirt."

You will grope about in broad daylight like someone blind, and you will not be able to find your way. You will not prosper in anything you do. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to help you.

Your cattle will be butchered before your very eyes, but you will not eat any of the meat. Your donkeys will be dragged away while you look on, and they will not be given back to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to help you.

A foreign nation will take all the crops that you have worked so hard to grow, while you receive nothing but constant oppression and harsh treatment.

"Listen to this, you that ignore me, or I will destroy you, and there will be no one to save you.