Dual Panel1How terrible it will be for you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry out any of the wicked schemes you have power to accomplish.
2When you want a certain piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and violence. No one’s family or inheritance is safe with you around!
3But this is what the LORD says: "I will reward your evil with evil; you won’t be able to escape! After I am through with you, none of you will ever again walk proudly in the streets."
4In that day your enemies will make fun of you by singing this song of despair about your experience: "We are finished, completely ruined! God has confiscated our land, taking it from us. He has given our fields to those who betrayed us."
5Others will set your boundaries then, and the LORD’s people will have no say in how the land is divided.
6"Don’t say such things," the people say. "Don’t prophesy like that. Such disasters will never come our way!"
7Should you talk that way, O family of Israel? Will the LORD have patience with such behavior? If you would do what is right, you would find my words to be good.
8Yet to this very hour my people rise against me! You steal the shirts right off the backs of those who trusted you, making them as ragged as men who have just come home from battle.
9You have evicted women from their homes and stripped their children of all their God–given rights.
10Up! Begone! This is no longer your land and home, for you have filled it with sin and ruined it completely.
11Suppose a prophet full of lies were to say to you, "I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and drink!" That’s just the kind of prophet you would like!
12"Someday, O Israel, I will gather the few of you who are left. I will bring you together again like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture. Yes, your land will again be filled with noisy crowds!
13Your leader will break out and lead you out of exile. He will bring you through the gates of your cities of captivity, back to your own land. Your king will lead you; the LORD himself will guide you."