15. Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says the Lord. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.
16. Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men.
17. They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.
18. “But even in those days,” says the Lord, “I will not make a full end of you.
19. It will happen, when you say, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Just as you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you will serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’
20. “Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,
21. ‘Hear this now, foolish people without understanding; who have eyes, and don’t see; who have ears, and don’t hear:
22. Don’t you fear me?’ says the Lord ‘Won’t you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can’t pass it? Though its waves toss themselves, yet they can’t prevail. Though they roar, they still can’t pass over it.’
23. “But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone.
24. They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear the Lord our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’
25. “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.