^18 (A)I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.

^19 (A)I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that ^(B)I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;

¹⁴ Moreover all the leaders of the priests and the people transgressed more and more, according to all the abominations of the nations, and defiled the house of the Lord which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.

The Fall of Jerusalem^(A)

^15 (B)And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. ¹⁶ But ^(C)they mocked the messengers of God, ^(D)despised His words, and ^(E)scoffed at His prophets, until the ^(F)wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.

^17 (G)Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who ^(H)killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand. ^18 (I)And all the articles from the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his leaders, all these he took to Babylon. ^19 (J)Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. ²⁰ And ^(K)those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, ^(L)where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia,

The Wickedness of Judah