What will you say when He appoints
close friends as leaders over you,
ones you yourself trained?
Won’t labor pains seize you,
as they do a woman in labor?

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

As a well gushes out its water,
so she pours out her evil.
Violence and destruction resound in her.
Sickness and wounds keep coming to My attention.

But I am full of the Lord’s wrath;
I am tired of holding it back.
Pour it out on the children in the street,
on the gang of young men as well.
For both husband and wife will be captured,
the old with the very old.

Their houses will be turned over to others,
their fields and wives as well,
for I will stretch out My hand
against the inhabitants of the land.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

However, I did give them this command: Obey Me, and then I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.