“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;
“Now look! You have put your trust in the staff of this crushed reed, Mitsrayim, on which if a man leans, it shall go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh sovereign of Mitsrayim to all who trust in him.
Your rulers are stubborn, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and runs after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow reach them.
Alas, sinning nation, a people loaded with crookedness, a seed of evil-doers, sons acting corruptly! They have forsaken יהוה, they have provoked the Set-apart One of Yisra’ĕ
because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with the grave we have effected a vision. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it does not come to us, for we have made lying our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”
Woe to those who go down to Mitsrayim for help, and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Set-apart One of Yisra’ĕ
And each one shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a shelter from the downpour, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
then יהוה shall create above every dwelling place of Mount Tsiyon, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for over all the esteem shall be a covering,
And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their Elohim? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?
“And speak a parable to the rebellious house, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus said the Master יהוה, “Put on a pot, put it on, and also pour water into it.
“Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I shall make your forehead. Do not be afraid of them, nor be discouraged at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.”
And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves moulded images from their silver, idols according to their skill, all of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who slaughter kiss the calves!”
“Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction to them, because they have transgressed against Me! And I Myself have ransomed them, yet they have spoken falsehoods against Me,
But according to your hardness and your unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of Elohim,
“And it shall be, when he hears the words of this curse, that he should bless himself in his heart, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,’ in order to add drunkenness to thirst.
“Remember, do not forget how you provoked to wrath יהוה your Elohim in the wilderness. From the day that you came out of the land of Mitsrayim until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against יהוה.