² “You shall not take a wife for yourself nor have sons or daughters in this place.” ³ For this is what the Lord says concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and concerning their ^(A)mothers who give birth to them, and their ^(B)fathers who father them in this land: ⁴ “They will ^(C)die of deadly diseases, they ^(D)will not be mourned or buried; they will be like ^(E)dung on the surface of the ground. And they will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the ^(F)birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

⁷ Now then, this is what the Lord God of armies, the God of Israel says: “Why are you ^(A)doing great harm to yourselves, to ^(B)eliminate from yourselves man and woman, child and infant from among Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant,