18-19 Tell the king and the queen-mother,“Come down off your high horses.Your dazzling crownswill tumble off your heads.”The villages in the Negev will be surrounded,everyone trapped,And Judah dragged off to exile,the whole country dragged to oblivion.
20-22 Look, look, Jerusalem!Look at the enemies coming out of the north!What will become of your flocks of people,the beautiful flocks in your care?How are you going to feel when the peopleyou’ve played up to, looked up to all these yearsNow look down on you? You didn’t expect this?Surprise! The pain of a woman having a baby!Do I hear you saying,“What’s going on here? Why me?”The answer’s simple: You’re guilty,hugely guilty.Your guilt has your life endangered,your guilt has you writhing in pain.
23 Can an African change skin?Can a leopard get rid of its spots?So what are the odds on you doing good,you who are so long-practiced in evil?
24-27 “I’ll blow these people away—like wind-blown leaves.You have it coming to you.I’ve measured it out precisely.”God’s Decree.“It’s because you forgot meand embraced the Big Lie,that so-called god Baal.I’m the one who will rip off your clothes,expose and shame you before the watching world.Your obsessions with gods, gods, and more gods,your goddess affairs, your god-adulteries.Gods on the hills, gods in the fields—every time I look you’re off with another god.O Jerusalem, what a sordid life!Is there any hope for you!”