7-9. “Why should I even bother with you any longer?Your children wander off, leaving me,Taking up with godsthat aren’t even gods.I satisfied their deepest needs, and then they went off with the ‘sacred’ whores,left me for orgies in sex shrines!A bunch of well-groomed, lusty stallions,each one pawing and snorting for his neighbor’s wife.Do you think I’m going to stand around and do nothing?”God’s Decree.“Don’t you think I’ll take serious measuresagainst a people like this?
10-11. “Go down the rows of vineyards and rip out the vines,but not all of them. Leave a few.Prune back those vines!That growth didn’t come from God!They’ve betrayed me over and over again,Judah and Israel both.”God’s Decree.
12-13. “They’ve spread lies about God.They’ve said, ‘There’s nothing to him.Nothing bad will happen to us,neither famine nor war will come our way.The prophets are all windbags.They speak nothing but nonsense.’”
14. Therefore, this is what God said to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies:“Because they have talked this way,they are going to eat those words.Watch now! I’m putting my wordsas fire in your mouth.And the people are a pile of kindlingready to go up in flames.