⁸ “‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, ^(A)“Why has the Lord dealt thus with this great city?”

⁸ And this house will become a heap of ruins.^[a] Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ^(A)‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ⁹ Then they will say, ‘Because ^(B)they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

^20 (A)then I will pluck you^[a] up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it ^(B)a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ²¹ And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ^(C)‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ²² Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’”

²³ the whole land burned out with brimstone and ^(A)salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, ^(B)an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, ^(C)Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— ²⁴ all the nations ^(D)will say, ^(E)‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ ²⁵ Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, ²⁶ and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them.

⁷ To you, ^(A)O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, ^(B)those who are near and ^(C)those who are far away, in ^(D)all the lands to which you have driven them, because of ^(E)the treachery that they have committed against you.

¹⁰ “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ^(A)‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’