Lord, you are ready to punish those people, but they do not see that. Show them your strong love for your people. Then those who are evil will be ashamed. Burn them in the fire you have prepared for your enemies.
How terrible it will be for those people who go down to Egypt for help. They think horses will save them. They think their many chariots and strong horsemen will save them. But they don’t trust God, the Holy One of Israel, or ask the Lord for help.
The Lord will hire Assyria and use it like a razor to punish Judah. It will be as if the Lord is shaving the hair from Judah’s head and legs and removing Judah’s beard.
I have separated the people of Judah with my pitchfork and scattered them at the city gates of the land. My people haven’t changed their ways. So I have destroyed them and taken away their children.
I say this because I know what I am planning for you,” says the Lord. “I have good plans for you, not plans to hurt you. I will give you hope and a good future.
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.
“ ‘By your sinful action you have become unclean. I wanted to cleanse you, but you are still unclean. You will never be cleansed from your sin until my anger against you is carried out.
All this disaster came to us just as it is written in the Teachings of Moses. But we have not pleaded with the Lord our God. We have not stopped sinning. We have not paid attention to your truth.
They did not turn to the Most High God. They are like a loose bow that can’t shoot. Because their leaders brag about their strength, they will be killed with swords, and the people in Egypt will laugh at them.
“I sent disasters against you, as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with swords, and your horses were taken from you. I made you smell the stink from all the dead bodies, but still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.