Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by.
I will make thee ... a reproach among the nations. They whose idolatries Israel had adopted, instead of comforting, would only exult in their calamities brought on by those idolatries (cf. the similar treatment the prodigal received in his misery from the so-called friends for whom he had forsaken his loving father, Luke 15:15, "He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine").