15. Should the axe boast against the One who chops with it? Should the saw magnify itself against the One who wields it? It would be like a rod waving the One who lifts it, or like a staff hoisting up the One who is not wood!
16. Therefore will the Lord Adonai-Tzva’ot, send leanness among his fat ones. Under its glory He will kindle a burning like a blazing fire.
17. So the light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. He will burn and consume its thorns and briers in one day.
18. Both the glory of his forest and his fruitful field, he will consume, both soul and body. It will be like a sick man wasting away.
19. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few, a child could record them.
20. Yet it will come about in that day that the remnant of Israel— those of the house of Jacob who escaped— will never again depend on the one who struck them down, but will depend upon Adonai, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21. A remnant will return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.
22. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction has been decreed. Justice overflows.