WOE to you, apostate children, saith the Lord, that you would take counsel, and not of me: and would begin a web, and not by my spirit, that you might add sin upon sin.
Woe to them, for they have departed from me: they shall be wasted because they have transgressed against me: and I redeemed them: and they have spoken lies against me.
But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God.
Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord! And their works are in the dark, and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?
And saying: Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious people that hath revolted from me. They and their fathers have transgressed my covenant even unto this day.
And when he shall hear the words of this oath, he should bless himself in his heart, saying: I shall have peace, and will walk on in the naughtiness of my heart; and the drunken may consume the thirsty.
And a man shall be as when one is hid from the wind, and hideth himself from a storm: as rivers of waters in drought, and the shadow of a rock that standeth out in a desert land.
And the Lord will create, upon every place of mount Sion and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection.
And now they have sinned more and more: and they have made to themselves a molten thing of their silver as the likeness of idols: the whole is the work of craftsmen: to these that say: Sacrifice men, ye that adore calves.
For you have said: We have entered into a league with death, and we have made a covenant with hell. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in lies, and by falsehood we are protected.
And when they shall say to you: Seek of pythons, and of diviners, who mutter in their enchantments: should not the people seek of their God, for the living of the dead?
Remember, and forget not how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that thou camest out of Egypt unto this place, thou hast always strove against the Lord.
And, behold, said he, you are risen up instead of your fathers, the increase and offspring of sinful men, to augment the fury of the Lord against Israel.
Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves: they all love bribes, the run after rewards. They judge not for the fatherless: and the widow's cometh not in to them.
And thou shalt speak by a figure, a parable, to the provoking house, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Set on a pot, set it on, I say, and put water into it.
And they shall be no more a confidence to the house of Israel, teaching iniquity, that they may flee, and follow them: and they shall know that I am the Lord God.
And he answered, and spoke to me, saying: This is the word of the Lord to Zorobabel, saying: Not with an army, nor by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Dost thou trust in Egypt, a staff of a broken reed, upon which if a man lean, it will break and go into his hand, and pierce it? So is Pharao king of Egypt, to all that trust in him.
Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.
WOE to them that go down to Egypt for help, trusting in horses, and putting their confidence in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong: and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel, and have not sought after the Lord.
And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water? And what hast thou to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river?