I will punish all who worship like pagans and who steal and kill in order to fill their master's house with loot.

I asked, "How long will it be like this, Lord?" He answered, "Until the cities are ruined and empty---until the houses are uninhabited---until the land itself is a desolate wasteland.

The LORD is going to devastate the earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth's surface and scatter its people.

The earth will lie shattered and ruined. The LORD has spoken and it will be done.

Like a lion coming from its hiding place, a destroyer of nations has set out. He is coming to destroy Judah. The cities of Judah will be left in ruins, and no one will live in them.

One disaster follows another; the whole country is left in ruins. Suddenly our tents are destroyed; their curtains are torn to pieces.

They will devour your crops and your food; they will kill your sons and your daughters. They will slaughter your flocks and your herds and destroy your vines and fig trees. The fortified cities in which you trust will be destroyed by their army.

The LORD says, "I will make Jerusalem a pile of ruins, a place where jackals live; the cities of Judah will become a desert, a place where no one lives."

Listen to the sound of crying in Zion: "We are ruined! We are completely disgraced! We must leave our land; our homes have been torn down."

Many foreign rulers have destroyed my vineyard; they have trampled down my fields; they have turned my lovely land into a desert.

Across all the desert highlands people have come to plunder. I have sent war to destroy the entire land; no one can live in peace.

They will throw their gold and silver away in the streets like garbage, because neither silver nor gold can save them when the LORD pours out his fury. They cannot use it to satisfy their desires or fill their stomachs. Gold and silver led them into sin.

"I will let foreigners rob them," says the LORD, "and lawbreakers will take all their wealth and defile it.

So I will turn my anger loose on them, and like a fire I will destroy them for what they have done." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

And so, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a pile of ruins, and the Temple hill will become a forest.

"You will be engaged to a young woman---but someone else will marry her. You will build a house---but never live in it. You will plant a vineyard---but never eat its grapes.

You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you will not gather their grapes or drink wine from them, because worms will eat the vines.

They will eat your livestock and your crops, and you will starve to death. They will not leave you any grain, wine, olive oil, cattle, or sheep; and you will die.

You are doomed! You buy more houses and fields to add to those you already have. Soon there will be no place for anyone else to live, and you alone will live in the land.

I have heard the LORD Almighty say, "All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins.

People will build houses and get to live in them---they will not be used by someone else. They will plant vineyards and enjoy the wine---it will not be drunk by others. Like trees, my people will live long lives. They will fully enjoy the things that they have worked for.

(SEE 65:21)

You have oppressed the poor and robbed them of their grain. And so you will not live in the fine stone houses you build or drink wine from the beautiful vineyards you plant.

You will sow grain, but not harvest the crop. You will press oil from olives, but never get to use it. You will make wine, but never drink it.