The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you appoint over you, to a nation which you and your fathers have never known; there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone. [2 Kin 17:4, 6; 24:12, 14; 25:7, 11; Dan 6:11, 12] And you will become a horror, a proverb [a mere object lesson], and a taunt [a derisive joke] among all the people to which the LORD drives you.
“You will bring out a great quantity of seed to the field, but you will gather in little, because the locusts will consume it. [Hag 1:6] You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because the worm will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourselves with the oil, because your olives will drop off. You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours [for long], because they will go into captivity. [Lam 1:5] The cricket will take possession of all your trees and the produce of your ground. [Joel 1:4] The stranger who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, and you will go down lower and lower. He will lend to you [out of his affluence], but you will not lend to him [because of your poverty]; he will be the head, and you the tail.
“So all these curses will come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you. They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.
“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with a heart full of joy and gladness for the abundance of all things [with which He blessed you], you will therefore serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger and in thirst, in nakedness and in lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke [of slavery] on your neck until He has destroyed you.
“The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand, a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young, and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you.
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