7. Therefore the Lord who rules over all says,“I will now purify them in the fires of affliction and test them.The wickedness of my dear people has left me no choice.What else can I do?
8. Their tongues are like deadly arrows.They are always telling lies.Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths.But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them.
9. I will certainly punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.“I will certainly bring retribution on such a nation as this!”
10. I said, “I will weep and mourn for the grasslands on the mountains,I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wildernessbecause they are so scorched no one travels through them.The sound of livestock is no longer heard there.Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fieldshave fled and are gone.”
11. The Lord said, “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins.Jackals will make their home there.I will destroy the towns of Judahso that no one will be able to live in them.”
12. I said, “Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened?Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it?Why does the land lie in ruins?Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?”
13. The Lord answered, “This has happened because these people have rejected my laws which I gave them. They have not obeyed me or followed those laws.
14. Instead they have followed the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts. They have paid allegiance to the gods called Baal, as their fathers taught them to do.
15. So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say. ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment.
16. I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords until I have destroyed them.’”