Ezekiel 36:3

¹³You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us. ¹⁴You make us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.

¹⁵All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?” ¹⁶All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.”

¹⁶to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

¹⁰“‘Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, “Peace;” and there is no peace. When one builds up a wall, behold, they plaster it with whitewash.

²The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

⁵The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

¹²Let’s swallow them up alive like Sheol,^[+] and whole, like those who go down into the pit.

³⁴“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out.

¹“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs. ²Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? ³They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. ⁴They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food. ⁵They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief, ⁶so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. ⁷They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles. ⁸They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land. ⁹“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them. ¹⁰They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.

²⁵Don’t let them say in their heart, “Aha! That’s the way we want it!” Don’t let them say, “We have swallowed him up!”