“I made your crops die from disease and mildew. When your gardens and your vineyards got larger, locusts ate your fig and olive trees. But still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
“At times the land will become so dry that no food will grow, or a great sickness will spread among the people. Sometimes all the crops will be destroyed by locusts or grasshoppers. Your people will be attacked in their cities by their enemy or will become sick.
“At times the land will get so dry that no food will grow, or a great sickness will spread among the people. Sometimes the crops will be destroyed by locusts or grasshoppers. Your people will be attacked in their cities by their enemies, or will become sick.
But instead, some of you want to light your own fires and make your own light. So, go, walk in the light of your fires, and trust your own light to guide you. But this is what you will receive from me: You will lie down in a place of pain.
The Arameans came from the east and the Philistines from the west, and they ate up Israel with their armies. But the Lord was still angry; his hand was still raised to punish the people.
Lord, don’t you look for truth in people? You struck the people of Judah, but they didn’t feel any pain. You crushed them, but they refused to learn what is right. They became more stubborn than a rock; they refused to turn back to God.
What the cutting locusts have left, the swarming locusts have eaten; what the swarming locusts have left, the hopping locusts have eaten, and what the hopping locusts have left, the destroying locusts have eaten.
“Though I sent my great army against you— those swarming locusts and hopping locusts, the destroying locusts and the cutting locusts that ate your crops— I will pay you back for those years of trouble.
Fig trees may not grow figs, and there may be no grapes on the vines. There may be no olives growing and no food growing in the fields. There may be no sheep in the pens and no cattle in the barns.
I will stop the insects so they won’t eat your crops. The grapes won’t fall from your vines before they are ready to pick,” says the Lord All-Powerful.