9. Therefore, I will bring a case against you again.This is the Lord’s declaration.I will bring a case against your children’s children.
10. Cross over to Cyprus and take a look.Send someone to Kedar and consider carefully;see if there has ever been anything like this:
11. Has a nation ever exchanged its gods? (But they were not gods! )Yet My people have exchanged their Gloryfor useless idols.
12. Be horrified at this, heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled.This is the Lord’s declaration.
13. For My people have committed a double evil:They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves,cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.
14. Is Israel a slave?Was he born into slavery? Why else has he become a prey?
15. The young lions have roared at him; they have roared loudly.They have laid waste his land. His cities are in ruins, without inhabitants.
16. The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have also broken your skull.
17. Have you not brought this on yourself by abandoning the Lord your Godwhile He was leading you along the way?
18. Now what will you gainby traveling along the way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gainby traveling along the way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19. Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you.Think it over and see how evil and bitter it isfor you to abandon the Lord your Godand to have no fear of Me.This is the declarationof the Lord God of Hosts.
20. For long ago I broke your yoke; I tore off your chains.You insisted, “I will not serve! ”On every high hilland under every green tree you lie down like a prostitute.
21. I planted you, a choice vine from the very best seed.How then could you turn intoa degenerate, foreign vine?