9. Listen to what I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, have to say. I will silence the sounds of joy and gladness and the happy sounds of wedding feasts. The people here will live to see this happen.
10. “When you tell them all this, they will ask you why I have decided to punish them so harshly. They will ask what crime they are guilty of and what sin they have committed against the Lord their God.
11. Then tell them that the Lord has said, ‘Your ancestors turned away from me and worshipped and served other gods. They abandoned me and did not obey my teachings.
12. But you have done even worse than your ancestors. All of you are stubborn and evil, and you do not obey me.
13. So then, I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. And there you will serve other gods day and night, and I will show you no mercy.’ ”
14. The Lord says, “The time is coming when people will no longer swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
15. Instead, they will swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of a northern land and out of all the other countries where I had scattered them. I will bring them back to their own country, to the land that I gave their ancestors. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
16. The Lord says, “I am sending for many fishermen to come and catch these people. Then I will send for many hunters to hunt them down on every mountain and hill and in the caves among the rocks.
17. I see everything they do. Nothing is hidden from me; their sins do not escape my sight.
18. I will make them pay double for their sin and wickedness, because they have defiled my land with idols that are as lifeless as corpses, and have filled it with their false gods.”