10-11. “Reassure the righteousthat their good living will pay off.But doom to the wicked! Disaster!Everything they did will be done to them.
12. “Skinny kids terrorize my people.Silly girls bully them around.My dear people! Your leaders are taking you down a blind alley.They’re sending you off on a wild-goose chase.”
13-15. God enters the courtroom.He takes his place at the bench to judge his people.God calls for order in the court,hauls the leaders of his people into the dock:“You’ve played havoc with this country.Your houses are stuffed with what you’ve stolen from the poor.What is this anyway? Stomping on my people,grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt?”That’s what the Master,God-of-the-Angel-Armies, says.
16-17. God says, “Zion women are stuck-up,prancing around in their high heels,Making eyes at all the men in the street,swinging their hips,Tossing their hair,gaudy and garish in cheap jewelry.”The Master will fix it so those Zion womenwill all turn bald—Scabby, bald-headed women.The Master will do it.
18-23. The time is coming when the Master will strip them of their fancy baubles—the dangling earrings, anklets and bracelets, combs and mirrors and silk scarves, diamond brooches and pearl necklaces, the rings on their fingers and the rings on their toes, the latest fashions in hats, exotic perfumes and aphrodisiacs, gowns and capes, all the world’s finest in fabrics and design.
24. Instead of wearing seductive scents,these women are going to smell like rotting cabbages;Instead of modeling flowing gowns,they’ll be sporting rags;Instead of their stylish hairdos,scruffy heads;Instead of beauty marks,scabs and scars.
25-26. Your finest fighting men will be killed,your soldiers left dead on the battlefield.The entrance gate to Zion will be clottedwith people mourning their dead—A city stooped under the weight of her loss,brought to her knees by her sorrows.