33. Then they built up the City of David with a high, strong wall and strong towers, and it became their citadel.
34. There they installed a sinful race, transgressors of the law, who fortified themselves inside it.
35. They stored up weapons and provisions, depositing there the plunder they had collected from Jerusalem, and they became a great snare.
36. The citadel became an ambush against the sanctuary,and a wicked adversary to Israel at all times.
37. They shed innocent blood around the sanctuary;they defiled the sanctuary.
38. Because of them the inhabitants of Jerusalem fled away,she became the abode of strangers.She became a stranger to her own offspring,and her children forsook her.
39. Her sanctuary became desolate as a wilderness;her feasts were turned into mourning,Her sabbaths to shame,her honor to contempt.
40. As her glory had been, so great was her dishonor:her exaltation was turned into mourning.
41. Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people,
42. and abandon their particular customs. All the Gentiles conformed to the command of the king,