2. And when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: “‘Those who are for pestilence, to pestilence,and those who are for the sword, to the sword;those who are for famine, to famine,and those who are for captivity, to captivity.’
3. I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
4. And I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.
5. “Who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem, or who will grieve for you?Who will turn asideto ask about your welfare?
6. You have rejected me, declares the Lord; you keep going backward,so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you— I am weary of relenting.
7. I have winnowed them with a winnowing forkin the gates of the land;I have bereaved them; I have destroyed my people; they did not turn from their ways.
8. I have made their widows more in numberthan the sand of the seas;I have brought against the mothers of young mena destroyer at noonday;I have made anguish and terrorfall upon them suddenly.
9. She who bore seven has grown feeble; she has fainted away; her sun went down while it was yet day;she has been shamed and disgraced.And the rest of them I will give to the swordbefore their enemies,declares the Lord.”
10. Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.
11. The Lord said, “Have I not set you free for their good? Have I not pleaded for you before the enemy in the time of trouble and in the time of distress?
12. Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?