But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
- KJV And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.
- NKJV I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.
- NASB You, however, I will scatter among the nations, and I will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become ruins.
- NLT I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God will scatter Israel among the nations while their land lies waste. Exile is the climactic covenant curse.
Overview
Scattering among the nations describes the exile, the ultimate covenant judgment, with the sword pursuing and the land left desolate. This prophecy was fulfilled in the Assyrian and Babylonian deportations. Even so, the dispersion is not God's last word, for He promises to remember His covenant and gather a people, fulfilled in Christ who gathers the scattered into one.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Zech 7:14But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”
- Ezek 20:23However, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands.
- Deut 28:64–66Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
- Deut 4:27Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
- Ps 44:11You have given us up as sheep to be devoured; You have scattered us among the nations.
- Ezek 22:15I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you throughout the lands; I will purge your uncleanness.
- Lam 4:15“Go away! Unclean!” men shouted at them. “Away, away! Do not touch us!” So they fled and wandered. Among the nations it was said, “They can stay here no longer.”
- Luke 21:24They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
- Jer 9:16I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
- Lam 1:3Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery; she dwells among the nations but finds no place to rest. All her pursuers have overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
- Ezek 12:14–16And I will scatter to every wind all the attendants around him and all his troops, and I will draw a sword to chase after them.
- Jas 1:1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes of the Dispersion: Greetings.
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:33 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.