Pul, king of Assyria, invaded the country. Menahem paid Pul a thousand talents of silver to support Menahem in consolidating his power over the kingdom.
Your country has been devastated, your towns burned down, your fields stripped bare by foreigners right in front of you, as they turn it all into a wasteland.
No, you've never heard that, and you've never known that! Nobody's told you about that before! I know how deviously you operate—you're called “rebels from birth”!
My people are dying because they don't know me. Because you have refused to know me, I refuse to accept you as my priests. You have forgotten my teachings, so I will forget your children.
Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head of grain; it will produce no flour. Even if it did produce grain, foreigners would swallow it all up.