Because of your detestable disobedience your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land—strangers devour it in your very presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens. And the Daughter of Tsiyon—Yerushalayim is left like a deserted booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, like a besieged city spared, but in the midst of desolation. Except Yahuweh your Almighty Creator of hosts had left us a very small remnant of survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah.
O thiaBasilia—O child of My heart? Take what you are reading as a confirmation of where you are coming from. Understand the reason for your weeping. Go on.
Hear O Yerushalayim the word of Yahuweh your Almighty Creator, you rulers or judges of another Sodom! Give ear to the law and the teaching of our Maker, you people of another Gomorrah! To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me unless they are the offering of the heart? says Yahuweh your Almighty Creator. I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts without obedience; and I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of he-goats without righteousness.
Indeed! My child that was your state and condition in so many years past. I plucked you out of that state and condition, but! There are many yet to be rescued.
When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you that your unrighteous feet trample My courts? Bring no more offerings of vanity (emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility); your hollow offering of incense is an abomination to Me; the New Moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure—it is iniquity and profanation, even the solemn meeting. Your New Moon festivals and your hypocritical appointed feasts My soul hates. They are an oppressive burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.
