23. I will heap disasters upon them; my arrows I will spend on them.
24. They will become weakened by famine, and consumed by plague and bitter pestilence; and the teeth of wild animals I will send against them, with the poison of the creeping things in the dust;
25. From outside her boundaries the sword will make her childless, and from inside, terror; both for the young man and also the young woman, the infant along with the gray-headed man.
26. I thought, “I will wipe them out; I will make people forget they ever existed.”
27. If I had not feared a provocation of the enemy, lest their foes might misunderstand, lest they should say, “Our hand is triumphant, and Yahweh did not do all this.” ’
28. For they are a nation void of sense, and there is not any understanding in them.
29. If only they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern for themselves their end.
30. How could one chase a thousand and two could cause a myriad to flee, if their Rock had not sold them, and Yahweh had not given them up?