4 Wrath is not in Me. Would that the briers and thorns [the wicked internal foe] were lined up against Me in battle! I would stride in against them; I would burn them up together.
5 Or else [if all Israel would escape being burned up together there is but one alternative], let them take hold of My strength and make complete surrender to My protection, that they may make peace with Me! Yes, let them make peace with Me!
6 In the days and generations to come Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and send forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit [of the knowledge of the true God]. [Hos. 14:1-6; Rom. 11:12.]
7 Has [the Lord] smitten [Israel] as He smote those who smote them? Or have [the Israelites] been slain as their slayers were slain?
8 By driving them out of Canaan, by exile, You contended with them in a measure [O Lord]–He removed them with His rough blast as in the day of the east wind.
9 Only on this condition shall the iniquity of Jacob (Israel) be forgiven and purged, and this shall be the full fruit [God requires] for taking away his sin: that [Israel] should make all the stones of the [idol] altars like chalk stones crushed to pieces, so that the Asherim and the sun-images shall not remain standing or rise again.
10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken like the wilderness; there the calf grazes, and there he lies down; he strips its branches and eats its twigs.