Zephaniah 1:2

¹⁶“The LORD says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷Because they have forsaken me and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.’”

¹³Yet the land will be desolate because of those who dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

²⁷“You shall tell them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall by the sword. I will give whoever is in the open field to the animals to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will die of the pestilence. ²⁸I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through. ²⁹Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment because of all their abominations which they have committed.”’

²⁹Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘The LORD says: “You have burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written therein, saying, “The king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cause to cease from there man and animal”?’”

⁸“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. ⁹I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. ¹⁰I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

²²Behold, I will command,” says the LORD, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

⁷The LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground—man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky—for I am sorry that I have made them.”

²¹to fulfill the LORD’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

⁸Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

⁹The LORD of Armies says, “They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.”

¹¹Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,