1. “The Lord says: I led my people out of slavery in Egypt; I gave them commandments through my servants, the prophets, but they refused to listen and ignored my teaching.
2. Jerusalem, the mother who brought them into the world, says to them, ‘Go your own way, my children; I am now a widow left completely alone.
3. I took great delight in bringing you up, but you sinned against the Lord God and did what I knew was wrong, so I mourned in deep grief when I lost you.
4. What can I do for you, now that I am a widow and left completely alone? Go, my children, and ask the Lord for mercy.’
5. “Father Ezra, I call on you to testify against these people as their mother has done, because they have refused to keep my covenant.
6. Now bring confusion on them and ruin on their mother, so that they will have no descendants.
7. They will be scattered among the nations, and no one on earth will remember them any longer, for they have despised my covenant.
8. “How terrible will be your punishment, Assyria. You have let wicked people hide within your borders. Remember, sinful nation, what I did to Sodom and Gomorrah.
9. Their land now lies covered with lumps of tar and heaps of ashes. That is what I do to people who do not obey me.