For before harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, then He shall cut off the twigs with pruning hooks, and shall cut down and take away the spreading branches.
For the city of defence is lonely, a home forsaken and left like a wilderness – there the calf feeds, and there it lies down, and shall consume its branches.
“Woe to the stubborn children,” declares יהוה, “to make counsel, but not from Me, and to devise plans, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin;
“And they shall eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds, they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. With the sword they shall demolish your walled cities, in which you are trusting.
Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her sovereign and her rulers are among the gentiles. The Torah is no more, And her prophets have found no vision from יהוה.
“And you shall say to the forest of the South, ‘Hear the word of יהוה! Thus said the Master יהוה, “See, I am kindling a fire in you, and it shall devour every green tree and every dry tree in you – the blazing flame is not quenched. And it shall burn all faces from the south to the north.
“Shomeron is held guilty, for she has rebelled against her Elohim – they fall by the sword, their infants are dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.”
‘And I shall bring against you a sword executing the vengeance of My covenant, and you shall gather together in your cities, and I shall send pestilence among you, and you shall be given into the hand of the enemy.
“For look, the day shall come, burning like a furnace, and all the proud, and every wrongdoer shall be stubble. And the day that shall come shall burn them up,” said יהוה of hosts, “which leaves to them neither root nor branch.
“And they shall besiege you at all your gates till your high and fenced walls, in which you are trusting, come down in all your land. And they shall besiege you at all your gates in all your land which יהוה your Elohim has given you.