A Word of Judgment

19 But the Lord took note and despised them

because his sons and daughters enraged him.

20 He said, “I will reject them,

I will see what will happen to them;

for they are a perverse generation,

children who show no loyalty.

21 They have made me jealous with false gods,

enraging me with their worthless gods;

so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize,

with a nation slow to learn I will enrage them.

22 For a fire has been kindled by my anger,

and it burns to lowest Sheol;

it consumes the earth and its produce,

and ignites the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will increase their disasters,

I will use up my arrows on them.

24 They will be starved by famine,

eaten by plague, and bitterly stung;

I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,

along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.

25 The sword will make people childless outside,

and terror will do so inside;

they will destroy both the young man and the virgin,

the infant and the gray-haired man.