1 People of Israel, stop celebrating your festivals like pagans. You have turned away from your God and have been unfaithful to him. All over the land you have sold yourselves like prostitutes to the god Baal and have loved the corn you thought he paid you with!
2 But soon you will not have enough corn and olive oil, and there will be no wine.
3 The people of Israel will not remain in the Lord's land, but will have to go back to Egypt and will have to eat forbidden food in Assyria.
4 In those foreign lands they will not be able to make offerings of wine to the Lord, or bring their sacrifices to him. Their food will defile everyone who eats it, like food eaten at funerals. It will be used only to satisfy their hunger; none of it will be taken as an offering to the Lord's Temple.
5 And when the time comes for the appointed festivals in honour of the Lord, what will they do then?
6 When the disaster comes and the people are scattered, the Egyptians will gather them up — gather them for burial there at Memphis! Their treasures of silver and the places where their homes once stood will be overgrown with weeds and thorn bushes.