6. Both great and small will die in this land without burial. No lament will be made for them, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them.
7. Food won’t be provided for the mourner to comfort him because of the dead. A cup of consolation won’t be given him because of the loss of his father or mother.
8. You must not enter the house where feasting is taking place to sit with them to eat and drink.
9. For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.
10. “When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? ’
11. Then you will answer them: Because your fathers abandoned Me” — this is the Lord’s declaration — “and followed other gods, served them, and worshiped them. Indeed, they abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.
12. You did more evil than your fathers. Look, each one of you was following the stubbornness of his evil heart, not obeying Me.
13. So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your fathers are not familiar with. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.
14. “However, take note! The days are coming” — the Lord’s declaration — “when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’
15. but rather, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.
16. “I am about to send for many fishermen” — this is the Lord’s declaration — “and they will fish for them. Then I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and out of the clefts of the rocks,