14. The nations of the world were like a bird's nest, and I gathered their wealth as easily as gathering eggs. Not a wing fluttered to scare me off; no beak opened to scream at me!”
15. But the Lord says, “Can an axe claim to be greater than the man who uses it? Is a saw more important than the man who saws with it? A club doesn't lift up a man; a man lifts up a club.”
16. The Lord Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns.
17. God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel's holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles.
18. The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys a person.
19. There will be so few trees left that even a child will be able to count them.