6. Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the Lord God of Israel, have spoken.”
7. When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel.
8. They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork — symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense.
9. When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel.
10. Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and who protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens in order to worship a foreign god.
11. But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain.
12. Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves.
13. The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a hillside, like straw in a whirlwind.