25. War will bring death in the streets;terrors will strike in the homes.Young men and young women will die;neither babies nor old people will be spared.
26. I would have destroyed them completely,so that no one would remember them.
27. But I could not let their enemies boastthat they had defeated my people,when it was I myself who had crushed them.’
28. “Israel is a nation without sense;they have no wisdom at all.
29. They fail to see why they were defeated;they cannot understand what happened.
30. Why were a thousand defeated by one,and 10,000 by only two?The Lord, their God, had abandoned them;their mighty God had given them up.
31. Their enemies know that their own gods are weak,not mighty like Israel's God.
32. Their enemies, corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah,are like vines that bear bitter and poisonous grapes,
33. like wine made from the venom of snakes.
34. “The Lord remembers what their enemies have done;he waits for the right time to punish them.
35. The Lord will take revenge and punish them;the time will come when they will fall;the day of their doom is near.
36. The Lord will rescue his peoplewhen he sees that their strength is gone.He will have mercy on those who serve him,when he sees how helpless they are.