27. I am the Lord, the God of all the living! Is anything too difficult for me?
28. Therefore the Lord says: I am handing over this city to the Chaldeans and to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall capture it.
29. The Chaldeans who are attacking this city shall go in and set the city on fire, burning it and the houses, on whose roofs incense was burned to Baal and libations were poured out to other gods in order to provoke me.
30. From their youth the Israelites and the Judahites have been doing only what is evil in my eyes; the Israelites have been provoking me with the works of their hands—oracle of the Lord.
31. This city has so stirred my anger and wrath, from the day it was built to this day, that I must put it out of my sight,
32. for all the evil the Israelites and Judahites have done to provoke me—they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
33. They turned their backs to me, not their faces; though I taught them persistently, they would not listen or accept correction.
34. Instead they set up their abominations in the house which bears my name in order to defile it.
35. They built high places to Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech; I never commanded them to do this, nor did it even enter my mind that they would practice this abomination, so as to bring sin upon Judah.
36. Now, therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city, which you say is being handed over to the king of Babylon by means of the sword, starvation, and disease:
37. See, I am gathering them from all the lands to which I drove them in my rising fury and great anger; I will bring them back to this place and settle them here in safety.
38. They shall be my people, and I will be their God.
39. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me always, for their own good and the good of their children after them.
40. With them I will make an everlasting covenant, never to cease doing good to them; I will put fear of me in their hearts so that they never turn away from me.
41. I will take delight in doing good to them: I will plant them firmly in this land, with all my heart and soul.
42. For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought upon this people all this great evil, so I will bring upon them all the good I have promised them.
43. Fields shall be purchased in this land, about which you say, “It is a wasteland, without human beings or animals, handed over to the Chaldeans.”