25. Outside, the sword will bring death,and inside, terror will strikeboth young men and young women,both infants and the aged.
26. I would have annihilated them,wiping out even the memory of them.
27. But I feared the taunt of Israel’s enemy,who might misunderstand and say,“Our own power has triumphed!The lord had nothing to do with this!”’
28. “But Israel is a senseless nation;the people are foolish, without understanding.
29. Oh, that they were wise and could understand this!Oh, that they might know their fate!
30. How could one person chase a thousand of them,and two people put ten thousand to flight,unless their Rock had sold them,unless the lord had given them up?
31. But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock,as even they recognize.
32. Their vine grows from the vine of Sodom,from the vineyards of Gomorrah.Their grapes are poison,and their clusters are bitter.
33. Their wine is the venom of serpents,the deadly poison of cobras.
34. “The lord says, ‘Am I not storing up these things,sealing them away in my treasury?
35. I will take revenge; I will pay them back.In due time their feet will slip.Their day of disaster will arrive,and their destiny will overtake them.’
36. “Indeed, the lord will give justice to his people,and he will change his mind about his servants,when he sees their strength is goneand no one is left, slave or free.
37. Then he will ask, ‘Where are their gods,the rocks they fled to for refuge?