17. They sacrificed to demons that are not God,to gods they never heard of.These were new gods, who came from nearby,gods your ancestors never worshiped.
18. (You ignored the rock who fathered youand forgot the God who gave you life.)
19. The Lord saw this and rejected them,because his own sons and daughters had made him angry.
20. He said, “I will turn away from themand find out what will happen to them.They are devious people,children who can’t be trusted.
21. They made him furious because they worshiped foreign godsand angered him because they worshiped worthless idols.So I will use those who are not my people to make them jealousand a nation of godless fools to make them angry.
22. My anger has started a firethat will burn to the depths of hell.It will consume the earth and its cropsand set the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23. I will bring one disaster after another on them.I will use up all my arrows on them.
24. They will be starved by faminesand ravaged by pestilence and deadly epidemics.I will send vicious animals against themalong with poisonous animals that crawl on the ground.
25. Foreign wars will kill off their children,and even at home there will be horrors.Young men and young women alike will dieas well as nursing babies and gray-haired men.
26. I said that I would cut them in pieces and erase everyone’s memory of them.
27. But I didn’t want their enemies to make me angry.I didn’t want their opponents to misunderstand and say,‘We won this victory!It wasn’t the Lord who did all this!’ ”
28. My people have lost their good sense.They are not able to understand.
29. If only they were wise enough to understand thisand realize what will happen to them!
30. How could one person chase a thousandor two people make ten thousand flee?Their rock used these people to defeat themand the Lord gave them no help.
31. Their rock isn’t like our rock.Even our enemies will agree with this.
32. Their grapevines come from the vineyards of Sodomand from the fields of Gomorrah.Their grapes are poisonous,and their clusters are bitter.
33. Their wine is snake venom,the deadly poison of cobras.