Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.

For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.

All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand.

Won't your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim?

"Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies.

Woe to him who says to the wood, 'Awake.' or to the mute stone, 'Arise.' Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in its midst.

You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger.

You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret.

For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: