16. Also, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have cracked your skull.
17. Have you not brought this on yourselves by forsaking the Lord your God when he led you in the way?
18. Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Nile ? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the Euphrates?
19. Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
20. “Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, ‘I will not serve you!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute.
21. I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?
22. Although you wash yourself with soap and use an abundance of cleansing powder, the stain of your guilt is still before me,” declares the Sovereign Lord.
23. “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? See how you behaved in the valley; consider what you have done. You are a swift she-camel running here and there,
24. a wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving— in her heat who can restrain her? Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves; at mating time they will find her.
25. Do not run until your feet are bare and your throat is dry. But you said, ‘It’s no use! I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’
26. “As a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the people of Israel are disgraced— they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets.
27. They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’ and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
28. Where then are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them come if they can save you when you are in trouble! For you, Judah, have as many gods as you have towns.
29. “Why do you bring charges against me? You have all rebelled against me,” declares the Lord.
30. “In vain I punished your people; they did not respond to correction. Your sword has devoured your prophets like a ravenous lion.