17. They immolated to demons and not to God, to gods whom they did not know, who were new and recent arrivals, whom their fathers did not worship.
18. You have forsaken the God who conceived you, and you have forgotten the Lord who created you.
19. The Lord saw, and he was stirred to anger. For his own sons and daughters provoked him.
20. And he said: 'I will hide my face from them, and I will consider their very end. For this is a perverse generation, and they are unfaithful sons.
21. They have provoked me with that which was not God, and they have angered me with their emptiness. And so, I will provoke them with that which is not a people, and I will anger them with a foolish nation.
22. A fire has been kindled in my fury, and it will burn even to the deepest Hell, and it will devour the earth with its produce, and it will burn the foundations of the mountains.
23. I will heap evils upon them, and I will expend my arrows among them.
24. They will be consumed by famine, and birds with a very bitter bite will devour them. I will send forth the teeth of wild beasts among them, along with the fury of creatures that scurry across the ground, and of serpents.
25. Outside, the sword will devastate them; and inside, there will be dread, as much for the young man as for the maiden, and as much for the newborn as for the old man.
26. I said: Where are they? I will cause their memory to cease from among men.
27. But because of the wrath of the enemies, I have delayed it. Otherwise, perhaps their enemies would be arrogant and would say: "Our exalted hand, and not the Lord, has done all these things."
28. They are a nation without counsel and without prudence.