^8 (A)and this house shall become a heap of ruins. Every passerby shall gasp in horror and ask, “Why has the Lord done such things to this land and to this house?” ⁹ And the answer will come: “Because they abandoned the Lord, their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods, bowing down to them and serving them. That is why the Lord has brought upon them all this evil.”

After Building the Temple.^[a]

¹⁹ And when they ask, “Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?” say to them, “As you have abandoned me to serve foreign gods in your own land, so shall you serve foreigners in a land not your own.”

¹² The Lord said: Because they have abandoned my law, which I set before them, and did not listen to me or follow it, ¹³ but followed instead their stubborn hearts and the Baals, as their ancestors had taught them,^{(A) 14} therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: See now, I will give this people wormwood to eat and poisoned water to drink.^{(B) 15} I will scatter them among nations whom neither they nor their ancestors have known; I will send the sword to pursue them until I have completely destroyed them.^(C)

¹⁰ When you proclaim all these words to this people and they ask you: “Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our crime? What sin have we committed against the Lord, our God?”—^{(A) 11 (B)}you shall answer them: It is because your ancestors have forsaken me—oracle of the Lord—and followed other gods that they served and worshiped; but me they have forsaken, and my law they did not keep. ¹² And you have done worse than your ancestors. Here you are, every one of you, walking in the stubbornness of your evil heart instead of listening to me.^{(C) 13} I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have known; there you can serve other gods day and night because I will not show you mercy.