Zephaniah 1:2

‘Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which you will in no way believe, if one declares it to you.’ ”

Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.

therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

For I am Yahweh. I will speak, and the word that I speak will be performed. It will be no more deferred; for in your days, rebellious house, I will speak the word, and will perform it,” says the Lord Yahweh.’ ”

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.

In seven days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. I will destroy every living thing that I have made from the surface of the ground.”

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

who tell the seers, “Don’t see!” and the prophets, “Don’t prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits.

A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

Why have you prophesied in Yahweh’s name, saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant?’ ” All the people were crowded around Jeremiah in Yahweh’s house.

“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘Go, and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Yahweh says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he will burn it with fire.

The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. Behold, today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them,

In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Tell the people of the land, ‘The Lord Yahweh says concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the land of Israel: “They will eat their bread with fearfulness, and drink their water in dismay, that her land may be desolate, and all that is therein, because of the violence of all those who dwell therein.

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

Then Yahweh’s angel replied, “O Yahweh of Armies, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?”

“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to Yahweh.

but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to Yahweh. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.

The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.

Yahweh said to Samuel, “Behold, I will do a thing in Israel at which both the ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.

He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.

who cause a person to be indicted by a word, and lay a snare for the arbiter in the gate, and who deprive the innocent of justice with false testimony.

Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands?’

The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal. They will die of a great pestilence.

This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say, ‘Yahweh says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it;

Yahweh says: “Yet again there will be heard in this place, about which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,’

Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today.

Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. Now the Chaldeans were against the city all around. The men of war went toward the Arabah,

He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

I 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.

Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who spoke, “How long will the vision about the continual burnt offering, and the disobedience that makes desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the army to be trodden under foot be?”

I will yet bring to you, inhabitant of Mareshah. He who is the glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

Therefore he will abandon them until the time that she who is in labor gives birth. Then the rest of his brothers will return to the children of Israel.

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

Beware therefore, lest that come on you which is spoken in the prophets:

Yahweh 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.”

After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’

Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand.

to fulfill Yahweh’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.

Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?

By Yahweh’s word, the heavens were made: all their army by the breath of his mouth.

But the wicked shall perish. The enemies of Yahweh shall be like the beauty of the fields. They will vanish— vanish like smoke.

Yahweh, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?

Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes.

The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly.

Yahweh has made everything for its own end— yes, even the wicked for the day of evil.

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

The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.

For Yahweh says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

“I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”

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

For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says Yahweh. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.” ’

behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, of evil, and of pestilence.

great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings;

Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “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.”

Concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘Yahweh 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?’ ” ’

“Go, and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will bring my words on this city for evil, and not for good; and they will be accomplished before you in that day.

Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured out, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is today.’

“Son of man, when a land sins against me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out my hand on it, and break the staff of its bread, and send famine on it, and cut off from it man and animal;

therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “I will stretch out my hand on Edom, and will cut off man and animal from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman. They will fall by the sword even to Dedan.

No foot of man will pass through it, nor will any animal foot pass through it. It won’t be inhabited for forty years.

The land that was desolate will be tilled instead of being a desolation in the sight of all who passed by.

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky, yes, the fish of the sea also die.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound. I have made you desolate because of your sins.

“Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not believe though it is told you.

“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned: for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow it, and you would be found even to be fighting against God!”

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?