13-15 God’s answer: “Because they abandoned my plain teaching. They wouldn’t listen to anything I said, refused to live the way I told them to. Instead they lived any way they wanted and took up with the Baal gods, who they thought would give them what they wanted—following the example of their parents.” And this is the consequence. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so:“I’ll feed them with pig slop.“I’ll give them poison to drink.
16 “Then I’ll scatter them far and wide among godless peoples that neither they nor their parents have ever heard of, and I’ll send Death in pursuit until there’s nothing left of them.”
17-19 A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:“Look over the trouble we’re in and call for help.Send for some singers who can help us mourn our loss.Tell them to hurry—to help us express our loss and lament,Help us get our tears flowing,make tearful music of our crying.Listen to it!Listen to that torrent of tears out of Zion:‘We’re a ruined people,we’re a shamed people!We’ve been driven from our homesand must leave our land!’”
20-21 Mourning women! Oh, listen to God’s Message!Open your ears. Take in what he says.Teach your daughters songs for the deadand your friends the songs of heartbreak.Death has climbed in through the window,broken into our bedrooms.Children on the playgrounds drop dead,and young men and women collapse at their games.
22 Speak up! “God’s Message:“‘Dead bodies everywhere, scattered at randomlike sheep and goat dung in the fields,Like wheat cut down by reapersand left to rot where it falls.’”
23-24 God’s Message:“Don’t let the wise brag of their wisdom.Don’t let heroes brag of their exploits.Don’t let the rich brag of their riches.If you brag, brag of this and this only:That you understand and know me.I’m God, and I act in loyal love.I do what’s right and set things right and fair,and delight in those who do the same things.These are my trademarks.”God’s Decree.
25-26 “Stay alert! It won’t be long now”—God’s Decree!—“when I will personally deal with everyone whose life is all outside but no inside: Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab. All these nations are big on performance religion—including Israel, who is no better.”