16. The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.
17. “Haven’t you brought this on yourself,in that you have forsaken the Lord your God, when he led you by the way?
18. Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor?Or why do you to go on the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
19. “Your own wickedness will correct you,and your backsliding will rebuke you.Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing,that you have forsaken the Lord your God,and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, the Lord of Hosts.
20. “For long ago I broke off your yoke,and burst your bonds.You said, ‘I will not serve;’for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself,playing the prostitute.
21. Yet I had planted you a noble vine,a pure and faithful seed.How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?
22. For though you wash yourself with lye,and use much soap,yet your iniquity is marked before me,” says the Lord GOD.
23. “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled.I have not gone after the Baals’?See your way in the valley.Know what you have done.You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;