36. I will bring despair into the hearts of those of you who survive in enemy territory. Just the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to running, and they will run scared as if running from a sword! They will fall even when no one is chasing them!
37. They will stumble over each other as they would before a sword, even though no one is chasing them! You will have no power to stand before your enemies.
38. You will disappear among the nations—the land of your enemies will devour you.
39. Any of you who do survive will rot in enemy territory on account of their guilty deeds. And they will rot too on account of their ancestors’ guilty deeds.
40. But if they confess their and their ancestors’ guilt for the wrongdoing they did to me, and for their continued opposition to me—
41. which made me oppose them, so I took them into enemy territory—or if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make up for their guilt,
42. then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will also remember my covenant with Isaac. And my covenant with Abraham. And I will remember the land.
43. The land will be absent of them and will be enjoying its sabbaths while it lies devastated, free of them. They will be making up for their guilty deeds for no other reason than the fact that they rejected my regulations and despised my rules.
44. But despite all that, when they are in enemy territory, I will not reject them or despise them to the point of totally destroying them, breaking my covenant with them by doing so, because I am the Lord their God.
45. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with the first generation, the ones I brought out of Egypt’s land in the sight of all the nations, in order to be their God; I am the Lord.