23. Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?Against whom have you raised your voiceand lifted your eyes in pride?Against the Holy One of Israel!
24. By your messengersyou have ridiculed the Lord.And you have said,“With my many chariotsI have ascended the heights of the mountains,the utmost heights of Lebanon.I have cut down its tallest cedars,the choicest of its junipers.I have reached its remotest heights,the finest of its forests.
25. I have dug wells in foreign landsand drunk the water there.With the soles of my feetI have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”
26. ‘Have you not heard?Long ago I ordained it.In days of old I planned it;now I have brought it to pass,that you have turned fortified citiesinto piles of stone.
27. Their people, drained of power,are dismayed and put to shame.They are like plants in the field,like tender green shoots,like grass sprouting on the roof,scorched before it grows up.
28. ‘But I know where you areand when you come and goand how you rage against me.