¹⁶ I promise you this, as surely as I live: if those three righteous men lived there, they would only save themselves. They could not even save the lives of their own children. The whole land would become an empty place. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

¹⁷ Or I might bring an enemy to attack that nation. I would say, “Soldiers with swords should destroy the whole land.” I would cause them to kill both people and animals. ¹⁸ I promise you this, as surely as I live: if those three righteous men lived there, they would only save themselves. They could not even save the lives of their own children. That is what the Almighty Lord says.