“If I cause dangerous wild beasts to pass through the land, and they despoil it so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts, though these three men were in it, as I live says the Lord Yahweh, they will deliver neither sons nor daughters. They only will be delivered, but the land will be desolate.”
The presence of such wild beasts indicates a land deserted by man, and thus one already under judgment, to be taken over by the wild beasts who would despoil what was left. The mention of sons and daughters probably has both Noah's and Lot's stories in mind, when their children were delivered. This judgment is to be worse in its effect than that of Sodom, with none deliberately spared except the exceptionally righteous.