When its twigs are dry, they are broken off, women come and set them on fire. For it is a people of no understanding, therefore He who made them has no compassion on them, and He who formed them shows them no favour.
“I was wroth with My people, I have profaned My inheritance and I gave them into your hand. You showed them no compassion, you made your yoke very heavy on the elderly.
“And I shall dash them one against another, both the fathers and the sons together,” declares יהוה. “I do not spare nor pardon nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.” ’ ”
“When they fast, I do not hear their cry. And when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I do not accept them. Instead, I am consuming them by sword, and by scarcity of food, and by pestilence.”
“She who has borne seven shall pine away. She shall breathe her last. Her sun shall go down while it is yet day. She shall be put to shame and be humiliated. And their remnant I give up to the sword before their enemies,” declares יהוה.
“For thus said יהוה, ‘See, I am making you a fear to yourself and to all your friends. And they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, while your eyes see it. And I shall give all Yehuḏ
“See, O יהוה, and look attentively To whom have You done thus. Should the women eat their offspring, Infants of a hand breadth? Should the priest and prophet be slain In the set-apart place of יהוה ?
“Would You proclaim, as in a day of appointed time, The fears that surround me? And no one escaped or survived In the day of the displeasure of יהוה. Those whom I have nursed and brought up My enemy has destroyed.”
“For thus said the Master יהוה, ‘See, I am giving you into the hand of those whom you hate, into the hand of those from whom your being turned in disgust.
‘And My eye shall not pardon, nor would I spare. I give you according to your ways while your abominations are in your midst. And you shall know that I am יהוה who smites.
“Therefore I shall indeed deal in wrath. My eye shall not pardon nor would I spare. And they shall cry in My ears with a loud voice, but I shall not hear them.”
