9. At that time all the walled cities will be empty. They will be like the mountains and the forests in the land before the Israelites came. In the past, all the people ran away because the Israelites were coming. In the future, the country will be empty again.
10. This will happen because you have forgotten the God who saves you. You have not remembered that God is your place of safety. You brought some very good grapevines from faraway places. You might plant those grapevines, but they will not grow.
11. You will plant your grapevines one day and try to make them grow, and the next day they will blossom. But at harvest time, you will go to gather the fruit from the plants, and you will see that everything is dead. A sickness will kill all the plants.
12. Listen to all these people! Their loud crying sounds like the noise from the sea. Listen, it is like the crashing of waves in the sea.
13. And like the waves, they will rush away when God speaks harshly to them. They will be like chaff blown away by the wind. They will be like weeds chased by a storm.