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Retribution upon the Jews
v. 1. At that time, saith the Lord, namely, when the sentence of God upon Jerusalem would be carried into effect, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, of all the rulers and leaders of the people, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves, the Babylonians defiling even the resting-places of the dead in carrying out the judgment upon Judah;
v. 2. and they shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, exposing them under the open sky to the influence of these heavenly bodies, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshiped, the many synonyms serving to bring out the accumulation of their idolatrous practices, the extremity of the foolish zeal with which they worshiped the host of heaven. They shall not be gathered nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth, the decomposing flesh and the skeletons serving as fertilizer of the fields. But the lot of the survivors would be still worse.
v. 3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts, literally, "shall prefer death to life in all places of the survivors whither I have driven them, saith Jehovah Sabaoth," the people in exile and captivity among the heathen being thus called to repentance even now.