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 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.
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
I call upon you, father, as a witness in addition to the mother of the children, because they would not keep my covenant,
6
that you may bring confusion upon 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 in your midst! O wicked nation, remember what I did to Sodom and Gomorrah,
9
whose land lies in lumps of pitch and heaps of ashes. So will I 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.