5 Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Let him make peace with me.”
6 In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit.
7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed?
8 In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherah poles and the incense altars shall rise no more.
10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.
11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.