Oy , a sinful nation, a people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons dealing corruptly! They have abandoned Adonai. They have despised Israel’s Holy One. They have turned backwards.
I am sending it against an ungodly nation, and against the people of My fury I am commissioning it, to take spoil and plunder, to trample them down like mud in the streets.
When the boughs are withered, they will be broken off. Women come and set them on fire, for it is a people of no understanding. Therefore their Maker will show them no mercy—He who formed them will give them no grace.
Yet He is also wise. He brings disaster, and does not take back His words. He rises against the house of evildoers, against help for workers of iniquity.
Now Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses are flesh, not spirit. When Adonai stretches out His hand, both he who helps will stumble and he who is helped will fall, and both will perish together.
Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw, and as chaff collapses into the flame, so their root will be like rot, and their blossom will go up like dust. For they have rejected the Torah of Adonai–Tzva’ot, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Therefore Adonai’s anger is kindled against His people. When He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them, the hills trembled, and their carcasses were like refuse in the streets. For all this His anger is not turned away, yet His hand is still outstretched.
Therefore give their children to famine and pour out the power of the sword. Let their wives be bereaved of children, and widows, and let their men be slain to death, and their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
Roam the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares! If you can find a person, if there is one who does justice, who seeks truth, then I will pardon the city.
“I sent among you a plague in the manner of Egypt. I slew your young men by the sword, with your chariot-horses in captivity. I made the stench of your camp rise up even to your own nostrils— yet you have not returned to Me,” declares Adonai.
and in the morning, ‘Stormy weather today, for the sky is red and gloomy.’ You know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times!