Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: because you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
When its boughs are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will show them no favor.
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
They that are slain with the sword are better than they that are slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for lack of the fruits of the field.
If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword! and if I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine! yea, both the prophet and the priest go about into a land that they know not.
And their nobles have sent their little ones for water: they came to the cisterns, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
Yea, the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the law of the LORD.
And shall lay you even with the ground, and your children within you; and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another; because you knew not the time of your visitation.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, does take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stock and the store, the whole supply of bread, and the whole supply of water.
And none considers in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon its coals; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the rest of it an abomination? shall I fall down to a block of wood?
Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten for me these, since I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and moving to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed: