²⁶ Still the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath by which his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.^(A)

⁴ and also for the innocent blood that he had shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to pardon.^(A)

¹¹ “Because King Manasseh of Judah has committed these abominations, has done things more wicked than all that the Amorites who were before him did, and has caused Judah also to sin with his idols,^{(A) 12} therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such evil that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.^{(B) 13} I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line for Samaria and the plummet for the house of Ahab; I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.^(C)

Punishment Is Inevitable

15 Then the Lord said to me: Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go!^{(A) 2} And when they say to you, “Where shall we go?” you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord:

³ And I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, says the Lord: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth to devour and destroy.^{(C) 4} I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what King Manasseh son of Hezekiah of Judah did in Jerusalem.^(D)

⁷ And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me,” but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it.^{(A) 8} She^[a] saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce, yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she also went and prostituted herself.^{(B) 9} Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.^{(C) 10} Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart but only in pretense, says the Lord.^(D)

¹⁶ but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy.^(A)

² He^[a] sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servants the prophets.^(A)

¹⁶ ‘Thus says the Lord: I will indeed bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷ Because they have abandoned me and have made offerings to other gods, so that they have provoked me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.’^(A)