Zephaniah 3:6

"I have cut off nations; their battlements are desolate; I have made their streets waste, so that none passeth by; their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, so that there is no inhabitant."

"I have cut off nations ..." It had been only a hundred years since God had cut off the northern kingdom, an event still fresh in the memory of Judah. Furthermore, throughout history, there had been many other examples of God's displeasure with great and wicked civilizations, cut off forever by the divine displeasure due to their sins. This was introduced as a warning to Judah. As Hailey said:

"When God gave them the land of Canaan, he had told the people that it was not because of their righteousness but because of the wickedness of the inhabitants whom he was casting out (Deuteronomy 9:4,5), and that if they would forget him, he would likewise cast them out (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28)."[10]

Israel was called "Canaan" twice in this prophecy, meaning that they had become one in vile character with the pagans whom they had displaced, carrying the stern implication that what God had already done once to the old Canaan, he would do again to Israel (Zephaniah 1:11; 3:5).