By night or by day it will not be extinguished; to time indefinite its smoke will keep ascending. From generation to generation she will be parched; forever and ever no one will be passing across her.

This parched state of the land of Edom was to continue “forever and ever,” and there was to be no restoration of its former residents or their descendants. The “smoke” ascending from the symbolic burning of the land of Edom will be like the “smoke” from the fiery destruction of Babylon the Great, concerning which it is written: “The smoke from her goes on ascending forever and ever.”​—Revelation 19:3; 18:18.