9. “Would I not punish them for this?” declares יהוה. “Would I not revenge Myself on such a nation as this?”
10. “I shall take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they have been burned up, without any passing over, nor has the voice of cattle been heard. Both the birds of the heavens and the beasts have fled, they have gone.
11. “And I shall make Yerushalayim a heap of ruins, a habitation for jackals; and the cities of Yehuḏah I shall make a waste, without an inhabitant.”
12. Who is the wise man, that he understands this? And to whom has the mouth of יהוה spoken, that he declares it? Why has the land perished, has it been burned up like a wilderness, with none passing through?
13. And יהוה says, “Because they have forsaken My Torah which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it,
14. but they have walked according to the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Ba‛als, which their fathers had taught them.”