4. When that time comes, people will use your story as an example of disaster, and they will sing this song of despair about your experience:We are completely ruined!The Lord has taken our land awayAnd given it to those who took us captive.”
5. So then, when the time comes for the land to be given back to the Lord's people, there will be no share for any of you.
6. The people preach at me and say, “Don't preach at us. Don't preach about all that. God is not going to disgrace us.
7. Do you think the people of Israel are under a curse? Has the Lord lost his patience? Would he really do such things? Doesn't he speak kindly to those who do right?”
8. The Lord replies, “You attack my people like enemies. Men return from battle, thinking they are safe at home, but there you are, waiting to steal the coats off their backs.
9. You drive the women of my people out of the homes they love, and you have robbed their children of my blessings for ever.
10. Get up and go; there is no safety here any more. Your sins have doomed this place to destruction.
11. “These people want the kind of prophet who goes about full of lies and deceit and says, ‘I prophesy that wine and liquor will flow for you.’
12. “But I will gather you together, all you people of Israel that are left. I will bring you together like sheep returning to the fold. Like a pasture full of sheep, your land will once again be filled with many people.”