21. So, this is what the Lord says:‘I will assuredly make these people stumble to their doom.Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction.Friends and neighbors will die.’
22. “This is what the Lord says:‘Beware! An army is coming from a land in the north.A mighty nation is stirring into action in faraway parts of the earth.
23. Its soldiers are armed with bows and spears.They are cruel and show no mercy.They sound like the roaring seaas they ride forth on their horses.Lined up in formation like men going into battleto attack you, Daughter Zion.’”
24. The people cry out, “We have heard reports about them!We have become helpless with fear!Anguish grips us,agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby!
25. Do not go out into the countryside.Do not travel on the roads.For the enemy is there with sword in hand.They are spreading terror everywhere.”
26. So I said, “Oh, my dear people, put on sackclothand roll in ashes.Mourn with painful sobsas though you had lost your only child.For any moment now that destructive armywill come against us.”
27. The Lord said to me, “I have made you like a metal assayerto test my people like ore.You are to observe themand evaluate how they behave.”
28. I reported, “All of them are the most stubborn of rebels!They are as hard as bronze or iron.They go about telling lies.They all deal corruptly.
29. The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely.But there is too much dross to be removed.The process of refining them has proved useless.The wicked have not been purged.
30. They are regarded as ‘rejected silver’because the Lord rejects them.”