I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities 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.
- BSB 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.
- 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 7:14“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned: for they made the pleasant land desolate.”
- Ezek 20:23Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the nations, and disperse them through the countries;
- Deut 28:64–66Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.
- Deut 4:27Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh will lead you away.
- Ps 44:11You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations.
- Ezek 22:15I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries. I will consume your filthiness out of you.
- Lam 4:15“Go away!” they cried to them, “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said among the nations, “They can’t live here any more.”
- Luke 21:24They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
- Jer 9:16I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”
- Lam 1:3Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest: all her persecutors overtook her within the straits.
- Ezek 12:14–16I will scatter toward every wind all who are around him to help him, and all his bands. I will draw out the sword after them.
- Jas 1:1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in 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.