1 "Thus says the Lord: I brought this people out of bondage, and I gave them commandments through my servants the prophets; but they would not listen to them, and made my counsels void. 2 The mother who bore them 1 says to them, "Go, my children, because I am a widow and forsaken. 3 I brought you up with gladness; but with mourning and sorrow I have lost you, because you have sinned before the Lord God and have done what is evil in my sight. 2 4 But now what can I do for you? For I am a widow and forsaken. Go, my children, and ask for mercy from the Lord.' 5 Now I call upon you, father, as a witness in addition to the mother of the children, because they would not keep my covenant, 6 so that you may bring confusion on them and bring their mother to ruin, so that they may have no offspring. 7 Let them be scattered among the nations; let their names be blotted out from the earth, because they have despised my covenant.
8 "Woe to you, Assyria, who conceal the unrighteous within you! O wicked nation, remember what I did to Sodom and Gomorrah, 9 whose land lies in lumps of pitch and heaps of ashes. 3 That is what I will do to those who have not listened to me, says the Lord Almighty."
10 Thus says the Lord to Ezra: "Tell my people that I will give them the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I was going to give to Israel. 11 Moreover, I will take back to myself their glory, and will give to these others the everlasting habitations, which I had prepared for Israel. 4 12 The tree of life shall give them fragrant perfume, and they shall neither toil nor become weary. 13 Go 5 and you will receive; pray that your days may be few, that they may be shortened. The kingdom is already prepared for you; be on the watch! 14 Call, O call heaven and earth to witness: I set aside evil and created good; for I am the Living One, says the Lord.