3. O Lord, don’t your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
4. Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of the Lord, nor the law of their God.
5. I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of the Lord, and the law of their God.” But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
6. Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them, a wolf of the evenings will destroy them, a leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, and their backsliding has increased.
7. “How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes’ houses.
8. They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbour’s wife.
9. Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the Lord. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10. “Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don’t make a full end. Take away her branches, for they are not the Lord’s.
11. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,” says the Lord.
12. They have denied the Lord, and said, “It is not he. Evil will won’t come on us. We won’t see sword or famine.
13. The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.”
14. Therefore the Lord, the God of Hosts says, “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them.
15. Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says the Lord. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.
16. Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men.