Therefore a lion from the forest shall smite them, a wolf of the deserts ravage them. A leopard is watching over their cities, whoever comes out of them is torn in pieces. For their transgressions have been many, their backslidings have been numerous.
For our transgressions have increased before You, and our sins witnessed against us. For our transgressions are with us, and as for our crookednesses, we know them:
“Your own evil instructs you, and your backslidings reprove you. Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter that you have forsaken יהוה your Elohim, and that My fear is not in you,” declares the Master יהוה of hosts.
“But I acted for My Name’s sake, that it should not be profaned before the eyes of the gentiles among whom they were – before whose eyes I had made Myself known to them, to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim.
Why are we sitting still? Gather yourselves, and let us go into the walled cities, and let us be silent there. For יהוה our Elohim has let us perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against יהוה.
“We shall lie down in our shame, while our reproach covers us. For we have sinned against יהוה our Elohim, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of יהוה our Elohim.”
I bear the displeasure of יהוה, for I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my case, and shall execute right-ruling for me, until He brings me out into the light and I look on His righteousness.