But didn’t my words and my statutes that I commanded my servants the prophets overtake your ancestors? ” ’ So the people repented and said, ‘As the Lord of Armies decided to deal with us for our ways and our deeds, so he has dealt with us.’
But I have told you these things so that when their time comes you will remember that I told them to you. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.
Therefore, this is what the Lord says: Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided up with a measuring line. You yourself will die on pagan soil, and Israel will certainly go into exile from its homeland.
For I am like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah. Yes, I will tear them to pieces and depart. I will carry them off, and no one can rescue them.
therefore I declared to you long ago. I announced it to you before it occurred, so you could not claim, “My idol caused them; my carved image and cast idol control them.”
They said to him, ‘This is what Hezekiah says: “Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace. It is as if children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.
As they are going, I will spread my net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the sky. I will discipline them in accordance with the news that reaches their assembly.
The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Let Israel recognise it! The prophet is a fool, and the inspired man is insane, because of the magnitude of your iniquity and hostility.