Therefore, a lion from the forest will strike them down.
A wolf from an arid plain will ravage them.
A leopard keeps watch over their cities.
Anyone who leaves them will be torn to pieces
because their rebellious acts are many,
their unfaithful deeds numerous.

Why should I forgive you?
Your children have abandoned Me
and sworn by those who are not gods.
I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery;
they gashed themselves at the prostitute’s house.

They are well-fed, eager stallions,
each neighing after someone else’s wife.

Go up among her vineyard terraces and destroy them,
but do not finish them off.
Prune away her shoots,
for they do not belong to the Lord.

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

They, the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
have dealt very treacherously with Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

They have contradicted the Lord
and insisted, “It won’t happen.
Harm won’t come to us;
we won’t see sword or famine.”

I am about to bring a nation
from far away against you,
house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
It is an established nation,
an ancient nation,
a nation whose language you do not know
and whose speech you do not understand.

The prophets become only wind,
for the Lord’s word is not in them.
This will in fact happen to them.

Roam through the streets of Jerusalem.
Look and take note;
search in her squares.
If you find one person,
any who acts justly,
who seeks to be faithful,
then I will forgive her.

Therefore, this is what the Lord God of Hosts says:

Because you have spoken this word,
I am going to make My words
become fire in your mouth.
These people are the wood,
and the fire will consume them.

Their quiver is like an open grave;
they are all mighty warriors.

Do you not fear Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Do you not tremble before Me,
the One who set the sand as the boundary of the sea,
an enduring barrier that it cannot cross?
The waves surge, but they cannot prevail.
They roar but cannot pass over it.

Hear this,
you foolish and senseless people.
They have eyes, but they don’t see.
They have ears, but they don’t hear.

They will consume your harvest and your food.
They will consume your sons and your daughters.
They will consume your flocks and your herds.
They will consume your vines and your fig trees.
They will destroy with the sword
your fortified cities in which you trust.

The prophets prophesy falsely,
and the priests rule by their own authority.
My people love it like this.
But what will you do at the end of it?

They have not said to themselves,
‘Let’s fear the Lord our God,
who gives the rain, both early and late, in its season,
who guarantees to us the fixed weeks of the harvest.’

But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts.
They have turned aside and have gone away.

for wicked men live among My people.
They watch like fowlers lying in wait.
They set a trap;
they catch men.

“But even in those days”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“I will not finish you off.

A horrible, terrible thing
has taken place in the land.

Your guilty acts have diverted these things from you.
Your sins have withheld My bounty from you,

Like a cage full of birds,
so their houses are full of deceit.
Therefore they have grown powerful and rich.

When people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You will respond to them: Just as you abandoned Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

“Declare this in the house of Jacob; proclaim it in Judah, saying:

They have become fat and sleek.
They have also excelled in evil matters.
They have not taken up cases,
such as the case of the fatherless, so they might prosper,
and they have not defended the rights of the needy.

Lord, don’t Your eyes look for faithfulness?
You have struck them, but they felt no pain.
You finished them off,
but they refused to accept discipline.
They made their faces harder than rock,
and they refused to return.

When they say, “As the Lord lives,”
they are swearing falsely.

Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Should I not avenge Myself
on such a nation as this?

I will go to the powerful
and speak to them.
Surely they know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.
However, these also had broken the yoke
and torn off the chains.

Then I thought:

They are just the poor;
they have played the fool.
For they don’t understand the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.