14. Is Israel a slave? Is he born into slavery? Why has he become a captive?
15. The young lions have roared at him, and yelled. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant.
16. The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.
17. “Haven’t you brought this on yourself, in that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, when he led you by the way?
18. Now what do you gain by going to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Shihor? Or why do you to go on the way to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River?
19. “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.
20. “For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.
21. Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a pure and faithful seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?
22. For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before me,” says the Lord Yahweh.
23. “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift dromedary traversing her ways;
24. a wild donkey used to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her craving. When she is in heat, who can turn her away? All those who seek her will not weary themselves. In her month, they will find her.
25. “Keep your feet from being bare, and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘It is in vain. No, for I have loved strangers, and I will go after them.’