4 How happy we are, people of Israel; we have the advantage of knowing what is pleasing to God!
5 Take courage, my people, you are the ones who keep Israel's name alive.
6 You were sold to Gentile nations, but not to be destroyed. Because you made God angry, he handed you over to your enemies.
7 When you offered sacrifices to demons instead of to God, you angered the one who made you.
8 You forgot the Eternal God, who had nourished you as a child, and so you brought grief to Jerusalem, who had been like a mother to you.
9 Jerusalem saw that God was punishing you because he was angry, and she said to all the neighbouring cities, “Look at the great misery that God has brought on me.
10 I saw my sons and daughters taken into captivity, a captivity brought on them by the Eternal God.