20. To what purpose do you bring me frankincense from Saba, and the sweet smelling cane from a far country? your holocausts are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me.
21. Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will bring destruction upon this people, by which fathers and sons together shall fall, neighbor and kinsman shall perish.
22. Thus saith the Lord: Behold a people cometh from the land of the north, and a great nation shall rise up from the ends of the earth.
23. They shall lay hold on arrow and shield: they are cruel, and will have no mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea: and they shall mount upon horses, prepared as men for war, against thee, O daughter of Sion.
24. We have heard the fame thereof, our hands grow feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, as a woman in labor.
25. Go not out into the fields, nor walk in the highway: for the sword of the enemy, and fear is on every side.