Can any of the idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the skies grant showers? Is it not You, Adonai our God? Do we not wait for You? For You have done all these things.
Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to a delusion and stumble in their ways— off the ancient paths— to walk on side-tracks, rather than a built-up highway.
“I will also set fire to the houses of Egypt’s gods. He will burn them and carry them off. He will wrap himself up with the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself up with his garment. Then he will depart from there victoriously.
“Declare it among the nations and proclaim! Raise a banner, announce, hide nothing! Say: ‘Babylon will be captured, Bel put to shame, Merodach dismayed, her images disgraced, her idols shattered!’
Were they ashamed of the abomination they committed? No, not ashamed, not at all— they do not know how to blush! So they will fall among the fallen. At the time of their punishment they will be brought down.” It is a declaration of Adonai.
Listen, the sound of the cry of the daughter of my people —a voice from a distant land— “Is Adonai no longer in Zion? Is her King no longer in her?” “Why have they provoked Me with their graven images, with foreign idols?”
The days of punishment have come; the days of retribution have come. Let Israel know! The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad! For great is your iniquity and great the hostility.
It will happen in that day”—it is a declaration of Adonai-Tzva’ot—“that I will erase the names of the idols from the land and they will no longer be remembered. Furthermore, I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.
and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We too are human, just like you! We proclaim the Good News to you, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
They made Me jealous with a non-god. They vexed Me with airy idols. So I will make them jealous with a non-people. With a foolish nation I will vex them.
But when they arose early the following morning, surprisingly, Dagon had fallen to his face on the ground before the ark of Adonai, and the head of Dagon and both palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold; only Dagon’s trunk was left on him.