⁷ Your country is desolate,^(A)
    your cities burned with fire;^(B)
your fields are being stripped by foreigners^(C)
    right before you,
    laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.^(D)

“Until the cities lie ruined^(B)
    and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted^(C)
    and the fields ruined and ravaged,^(D)

¹⁸ Surely wickedness burns like a fire;^(A)
    it consumes briers and thorns,^(B)
it sets the forest thickets ablaze,^(C)
    so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.

¹⁰ Your sacred cities^(A) have become a wasteland;
    even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.^(B)

¹¹ It will be made a wasteland,^(A)
    parched and desolate before me;^(B)
the whole land will be laid waste
    because there is no one who cares.

¹¹ I will destroy the cities^(A) of your land
    and tear down all your strongholds.^(B)