25. Outdoors the sword shall bereave,and indoors terror,for young man and woman alike,the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.
26. I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces; I will wipe them from human memory,”
27. had I not feared provocation by the enemy,lest their adversaries should misunderstand,lest they should say, “Our hand is triumphant,it was not the Lord who did all this.”’
28. “For they are a nation void of counsel,and there is no understanding in them.
29. If they were wise, they would understand this;they would discern their latter end!
30. How could one have chased a thousand,and two have put ten thousand to flight,unless their Rock had sold them,and the Lord had given them up?
31. For their rock is not as our Rock; our enemies are by themselves.
32. For their vine comes from the vine of Sodomand from the fields of Gomorrah;their grapes are grapes of poison;their clusters are bitter;
33. their wine is the poison of serpentsand the cruel venom of asps.