5. They told you to turn from your wicked way of life and from the evil things you are doing, so that you could go on living in the land that the Lord gave you and your ancestors as a permanent possession.
6. They told you not to worship and serve other gods and not to make the Lord angry by worshipping the idols you had made. If you had obeyed the Lord, then he would not have punished you.
7. But the Lord himself says that you refused to listen to him. Instead, you made him angry with your idols and have brought his punishment on yourselves.
8. “So then, because you would not listen to him, the Lord Almighty says,
9. ‘I am going to send for all the peoples from the north and for my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. I am going to bring them to fight against Judah and its inhabitants and against all the neighbouring nations. I am going to destroy this nation and its neighbours and leave them in ruins for ever, a terrible and shocking sight. I, the Lord, have spoken.
10. I will silence their shouts of joy and gladness and the happy sounds of wedding feasts. They will have no oil for their lamps, and there will be no more corn.
11. This whole land will be left in ruins and will be a shocking sight, and the neighbouring nations will serve the king of Babylonia for seventy years.
12. After that I will punish Babylonia and its king for their sin. I will destroy that country and leave it in ruins for ever.
13. I will punish Babylonia with all the disasters that I threatened to bring on the nations when I spoke through Jeremiah — all the disasters recorded in this book.
14. I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done, and many nations and great kings will make slaves of them.’ ”
15. The Lord, the God of Israel, said to me, “Here is a wine cup filled with my anger. Take it to all the nations to whom I send you, and make them drink from it.
16. When they drink from it, they will stagger and go out of their minds because of the war I am sending against them.”
17. So I took the cup from the Lord's hand, gave it to all the nations to whom the Lord had sent me, and made them drink from it.
18. Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah, together with its kings and leaders, were made to drink from it, so that they would become a desert, a terrible and shocking sight, and so that people would use their name as a curse — as they still do.